A Fowl's Indulgence
by Alarose
Summary: Artemis Fowl has made another discovery about magic, humans can use it. Now, after several months of research in wizard books and practice with wizard magic, he plans to study Wizard interaction itself. At Hogwarts. As a teacher. HarryPotterAF crossover
1. Welcome, Artemis, to Hogwarts

Artemis focused on the task before him, an interview. Now, one would normally not suspect Artemis to even bother getting a job since he doesn't need the money and it would only waste his time, but he was curious. After all, Artemis was applying for a supposedly cursed position in a magical school in Britain. His one bright blue eye and his shifting hazel eye bore into the sparkling visage of the Headmaster of said magic school.

Dumbledore looked down at the previously submitted application for the generally disliked, if not hated, and cursed position of DADA teacher. He had done some background research, and found that even if the Fowl family (maybe, there was no actual proof, they just seemed to randomly get large sums of money in the mail, but that usually means something) was involved in shady business, Artemis was the first wizard to ever belong to that family in almost hundreds of years. They might as well have been the purebloods of the muggle world, so there was virtually no chance young Artemis could be involved with Voldemort. And it would be entirely obvious if Artemis was a spy, his sheer non-magicness (Dumbledore faintly considered that magicness probably wasn't a word) in his background would stand out too much. His records also stated that he clearly took his O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s privately and passed with flying colors only a month ago. Dumbledore knew that Artemis really didn't have enough experience in the field to be a good teacher for DADA, but he would probably be much better for the students then Umbridge.

Dumbledore sighed and dropped the papers he had been looking at. Either way, the students were probably not going to be learning much this year, but at least Artemis would allow them to practice their spells. He knew Fudge was paranoid and Umbridge would probably minimize practical application learning.

"Why do you want this job?" Dumbledore asked, facing Artemis with his chin resting on his hands. Artemis smiled his creepy, vampiric smile.

"Curiosity." Dumbledore blinked, it was not an answer he had been expecting. Perhaps, 'I want to pay back the community' or 'I felt I wasn't ready to leave the learning environment' given the 'educated' feeling Artemis was giving off. Maybe even 'I was bored', but simple curiosity? How curious.

"Do you have experience with children about school age?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes"

"In the form of siblings, friends, or a previous job?"

"All of the above"

"Why should I choose you for this position?"

"I'm your only choice. Do not take me for a fool Dumbledore, I know the truth of the scandal going on between you and the Minister"

"Do you now... What do you plan to cover in the upcoming year?"

"Practical self-defense application, practical defense application, and theoretical moral application and challenges facing wizards and muggles"

"How will you involve students?"

"I plan to bring in help from people with experience in dealing with wizards and muggles, magical creatures of a manageable size and overall terrifying appearance, and textbooks. The students will be presented with questions which will force them to think 'outside of the box' as some would say, and I plan to introduce the practicality of strategy and how to apply it to every situation."

"How would you motivate the students?"

"Psychology" Dumbledore leaned back, Artemis may actually be more than just better then Umbridge. He had a lot to think about, but Artemis got the job.

"It is tradition for teachers to take the train ride with the students their first year teaching here, after that it is up to the teacher whether they wish to ride it again. We will start with a one year trial, and see how you are afterword. Term begins September 1st, but I will need a list of supplies for all years by the end of the week." Artemis nodded, before grabbing a folded paper out of his pocket and handing it to Dumbledore.

"I already wrote one out in the event I was accepted" Dumbledore nodded and took the paper. Artemis stood and walked out, his creepy eyes finally turning away. Oh yes, Dumbledore had a lot to think about.

...

Artemis walked slowly towards Hogsmeade, where a portkey was waiting to take him back to Fowl Manor. Butler was probably getting very impatient, after all, he wasn't happy that his charge was going away for a year, maybe more. It had been hardly a year since he had come back from his little trip through time, but he barely seemed to have aged a day. Artemis thought it probably had something to do with the trip, but he wasn't sure if it was the time-traveling or the magic he had stolen. Yes, stolen. When Artemis studied some more on his magic, he learned that his stolen magic had actually opened pathways throughout his body and stimulated a part of the brain until he had begun to produce his own magic.

The discovery was life-changing.

Statistically, the simple fact that it was so easy for his own body to start producing magic showed that there was probably a high percentage of humans born with the slight variation and were capable of using magic. Thus, he dove into legends like he had with his interest in fairies. He came across many different stories, but there was always a main, almost archetypal, magic-user. The wizard. And the central hub of wizardry lied in Britain, and so he came. He first chose to go to the capital because if a group of wizards were in hiding, they would want to be in a place where strange people move around constantly, they would be near the non-magic hub for news and the like, and a place where transportation to virtually anywhere is possible, and the capital was the best place for that.

Artemis had begun by simply wandering, every now and then he would see someone dressed or moving around awkwardly and concluded that they may have been wizards not used to hiding, foreigners, tourists, (since, after all, there is a difference), or just socially awkward people. After a few days, he came across a dingy pub and saw that only strangely dressed people, supposedly socially awkward people, and people who looked like beggers went in and out of. Every now and then, an excited child might run in, and Artemis concluded from the way no one else saw it (Even Butler. Actually, especially Butler) and that any electronic device he saw would go heywire as soon as the person neared the building, that it was hidden by magic. So he went in and left his poor friend to panic. The moment he walked through the door he knew that he had found the place. A woman wove a wand and a tea kettle levitated up and poured her some more. The Fireplace lit up green and a wizard came out. The place, though depressing and mostly painted dark colors, was actually unnaturally clean. Artemis nodded and walked back out.

"Butler, I seem to have discovered another hidden civilization. However, it appears as if you cannot enter since you do not have any magic. I wish to explore some more, but shall be back shortly. Please wait here, I'll be fine." Butler nodded, but was still rather paranoid, especially when it came to Artemis. Artemis did sometimes wonder if that paranoia had begun to rub off onto him, but he pushed aside his own feelings for his logical conclusions.

Over the next month Artemis threw his whole self into the world of the Wizard, he had followed another wizard into Diagon Alley where he learned everything. He read and bought a copy of nearly every book in Fluorish and Blotts, got a wand (Hazel wood, 9 inches, fairy wings core. Ironic), Transferred a large sum of money to Gringotts (and concluded that the goblins there are probably descendants of the People who didn't make it underground a millenia ago) and applied to take his wizarding school tests. He passed, of course. It only took him a few months to study and learn enough to pass. Then he wanted to learn more about the wizarding world.

So he applied for a job.

With his interview over and September 1st quickly approaching, he decided to pack and make a few more trips to Diagon Alley.

...

He had finished packing and, though he loved Armani suits, he really didn't think they were best for teaching children. Instead, he wore simple black slacks, a thin silk black top, and tie. Over it all (to blend in with the wizards a little more) he wore a midnight blue long coat made of Vicuna for warmth of course. He had to make a visit to Diagon Alley to see if his order had come in yet, so he left Butler in charge of the house (Since his family was currently on vacation in Santorini) and flooed over to Fluorish and Blotts.

"Wow, most of these book are pretty recent"

"So? Doesn't that actually make them worse? Ow!"

"Honestly Ron, it shows that our new DADA teacher is probably very up-to-date and those other books are so out-of-date anyway"

"Hermione, here's that other book you wanted"

"Oh, thanks Harry. Alright, now that we have the updated version of Miranda's Standard Book of Spells Grade 5, we just need one more. Come on Ron, at least help us find Strategy in Battle by Artemis Fowl II"

"Jeez, alright, alright"

Artemis arrived right in the middle of this little chitchat between friends, but totally ignored the three who gave him looks of distrust.

"I am here to pick up an order which should have come in at noon today"

"Name?" The receptionist asked, not even looking up. Meanwhile, Ron kept glancing at him.

"He's a Slytherin"

"Ron, honestly! Just ignore him and help me find the book!"

"Ron might have a point, Hermione. He looks about our age, but I've never seen him before"

"My name is Artemis Fowl II" The teenager told the receptionist, who suddenly looked up with wide eyes and nodded. She seemed to scramble slightly before grabbing a pile of books and handing them to him.

"I'm afraid it is about 243 galleons for them all" Artemis just nodded and handed the receptionist the money, quickly counting the number of books (sixteen. four squared) before taking the books, shrinking them, and promptly leaving the way he had come. Leaving a large group of people gaping who had heard the price and his name, including Ron, Hermione, and Harry.

...

Artemis levitated his bag up onto the rack, and sat down reading his book; Magic and Technology by John Atanasoff. A couple of people came in and sat with him, but he mostly ignored them, faintly noting their names and appearances.

"Hi, my name's Ginny. What's yours? Are you a first year? I don't remember seeing you before" The small red head sitting next to him seemed to have finally noticed his existence. He calmly set down the book in his lap, mentally noting what page he was on.

"Artemis Fowl II, but you will call me Professor Fowl" His differently colored eyes raised up and looked at Ginny calculatively. Harry looked at him with some suspicion, remembering seeing him in Flourish and Blotts. Artemis simply looked back to his book and continued reading, but kept a small percentage of his mind listening to the conversation around him, unconciously noting their vocal patterns, making unsteady(at best, but probably quite accurate considering Artemis's skill at that particular subject) psychological assumptions, body behavior, and relationships. He also noted that he was introduced to everyone in the cabin at some point, even those who came later. The girl with very disorderly russet hair had stared at him for a good while after learning he was to be a professor, as if expecting he would start talking to her just to make her stop staring, what a ridiculous notion. Hogsmeade soon came in sight and the students changed into their robes, abandoning the casual clothing they had been wearing before. Artemis simply put down his book and stared out the window, his mind in many places at once. As the train slowed to a stop, Artemis stepped off the train and looked for the carriages he was supposed to ride. The students parted around him, as if able to sense that to come to close to him would bring possible disaster. He boarded a lone, empty carriage (pulled by thestrals he noted, looking at the creatures oddly) and rode by himself up to Hogwarts.

The carriage holding Artemis slowly bounced along in the back of the other carriages, the thestral pulling it being quite old and tired kept stopping for a few seconds to rest. Naturally, Artemis was running a little late.

The other carriages dropped off their passengers who strode into the great hall and sat at their respective tables, the carriage which Artemis was in pulling up just before the first years managed to get out of their boats. Now, Artemis realized that he was late but he also refused to be a messy person as he knew he would be if he rushed. So, he straightened out his dark blue tie and made sure there were no wrinkles in his silk black shirt or black slacks. Then he walked forward with confidence into the great hall.

Every eye turned to him, but he didn't feel nervous or anything, simply striding forward until he was standing before Dumbledore. The old wizard gestured to a seat a little ways away, Artemis nodded his head to the old man out of respect before sitting in the chair to which he was pointed to. He sat in between a large, almost toad-like, woman and a short man who was probably one of the descendants of the Fairies who was left aboveground. He could tell that there were several, but it seemed like only one group had been accepted by wizards as somewhat equal. They were usually short, pointy eared, wrinkly, and bald on the top of their heads. Artemis wasn't sure of the fairy name for this specific breed, but the wizards called them either goblins or elves depending on their job. Artemis smirked, after extensive research he had discovered that the wizards and Haven had no idea of the others existence, and Artemis planned to keep it that way for as long as possible. He remained stoic and silent as he sat, but acknowledged the presence of the two sitting by him with a nod. They both seemed to want to talk to him, but didn't really know what to ask. Then the sorting started.

And Artemis was astounded by the sorting hat. He focused and memorized the song, analyzing it and finding that the hat was quite intelligent. But was it? If that hat took all year to make that song, then it might not be that smart. But, if it produced the song then sat around doing nothing but thinking for the whole year, it could be very smart. After the students were sorted, Dumbledore stood up and the hall went silent.

"Tuck in!"

Food seemed to appear on the plates by magic, but Artemis had researched everything he could about Hogwarts before coming here (Butler's paranoia must be rubbing off on him) and knew that it was actually a system similar to portkeys, where the food on one plate exactly one floor below him would be transported to it's corresponding plate above. He ate.

"Ah on'n ust im"

"Ron, chew your food before speaking"

"Sorry, I was saying that I don't trust him"

"I kind of agree with you Ron, he's creepy, but I trust in Dumbledore's judgement"

"I agree with Harry for this one Ron, creepy doesn't necessarily mean evil"

"Fine, jeez"

"I just hope he's a good teacher"

All three nodded and ate.

After a while, Dumbledore stood up once more and pinged his glass for all to hear.

"First of all, the Forbidden Forest is forbidden, many of you seem to forget that. Our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is Professor Fowl" Artemis stood up and nodded then sat down, doing nothing else. Though he heard a few jokes going around about his name ('Professor Foul'). "And due to recent events the Ministry has decided to appoint a Hogwarts High Inquisitor, Professor Umbridge." The toad woman stood up as Artemis had, but cleared her throat and successfully interrupted Dumbledore.

"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizard of vital importance. Although each Headmaster has brought something new to this historic school, progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. Let us preserve what must be preserved, perfect what can be perfected and prune practices that ought to be prohibited." With that, Umbridge sat down. Artemis was surprised, the situation between Hogwarts and the Ministry was actually worse than he had first thought, a mistake on his part.

"Thank you Professor Umbridge, that was most...illuminating"

"Illuminating? What a load of waffle!" Ron said, not understanding a word of what was just said by Umbridge.

Hermione frowned, "Don't you understand? She basically said that the Ministry is taking over Hogwart!"

"They can't do that though, can they? I mean, Dumbledore's the headmaster" Harry protested weakly.

Hermione just frowned at Umbridge, lost in thought as the students and staff were released for bed.

Artemis himself was escorted by a small house elf and shown to his classroom. His office was in the back of the classroom, but had a second doorway which managed to defy all physics and open up into the hallway (magic, duh). The third doorway led to his chambers, a small bathroom (by Artemis' standards) and an acceptable bedroom and bed. (once again, by his standards. They were very plain, but large) He opened the chest at the foot of his bed and could not see a bottom, so obviously it was made to hold nearly anything and everything which could fit through the entrance. Artemis removed his sleep wear from a bag before he placed his bags into the chest and they vanished into the seemingly neverending abyss. Nodding to himself, he changed and set his old clothes onto a chair in a neatly folded pile, trusting the house elves to clean them. Then he collapsed onto his bed and mentally prepared himself for his first class the next day.

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	2. Getting Started

Artemis gazed at his class. Carefully walking across the front, his head held high, he exuded an aura of power. Any students who might have given him trouble because of his age thought twice. Artemis held a sheet in front of him, taking role call. To keep himself entertained, he counted the letters in each name. Hermione. eight letters. eight, a nice round number. Four times two. Two cubed. Artemis decided he liked the number two more. Theodore. Also eight letters. Neville. seven letters. A prime number. The same number of letters as in his own name. Artemis nodded to himself approvingly. Pansy. five letters. Also a prime number, five was by far one of the most useful numbers. Harry. The survivor of the Killing Curse. Draco. A clever boy born into the aristocracy. Both had five letters in their name. Actually, come to think of it, Holly had five letters in her name as well, didn't she? Ronald. six letters. A useful if sometimes painful number. Both Butler and Juliet had six letters in their names. Having completed role, he set the sheet next to his desk and turned to face the class.

"I am Professor Artemis Fowl." Huh, five words. Interesting how just those five words can grab and hold the attention of everyone in the room. Artemis mentally shook himself. It was class time. Time to stop with the counting.

"You may call me Professor Fowl. I will not allow for anyone to call me anything else. I will tell you that I intend to teach you more than just defense. You will also be learning management, communication, and interaction. I will be bringing in guest speakers, whom you are to treat kindly and with respect, no matter your opinion of them. If you do not, you will suffer a detention with me and have thirty house points deducted for each disrespect. As for your assignments, I expect each one to be written with correct grammar and punctuation. I will be grading each essay according to O.W.L standards and will give you a letter grade based on that. However, for every grammar or spelling mistake, I will lower your grade by one letter. Every weekend, you will be expected to research a spell,creature, or legendary item of your choice not covered in class. You will write up six inches on it and hand it in on Monday. You will do this project every weekend, in addition to your normal homework, except for on holidays. Any questions?"

The class was silent, somewhat shocked by the strictness of the grading and the sheer amount of homework it seemed they would be getting. Artemis returned to his desk at the front of the classroom and picked up a small pile of papers.

"Good. If you think of any questions later, do not be afraid to ask. Wands away." There were several confused looks passed between students, but they reluctantly put their wands away. "Now, I understand that your previous education in this subject has been fragmented by the variety of teachers you have had over the last few years, some of whom should never have been in the same room as students." Harry Potter stood up indignantly.

"If you're talking about Professor Lupin, he was the best teacher we ever had!" Lupin. five letters. Artemis stopped his speech and looked at Harry calmly. He despised being interrupted.

"As it happens, I was talking primarily about my _esteemed_ colleague Professor Lockhart." Lockhart. eight letters. two times four. "Since this is the first incident in my class, I shall let you go with a warning Mr. Potter. In the future, you will raise your hand and you will not shout. You will speak calmly and discuss any issues in a rational manner. Now, since your education has had so many difficulties, I will start with a quiz and a homework assignment." There was a collective groan around the class. Artemis chose to ignore it, however undignified it might have been, because these were children.

Children. Children indeed. Their eyes told stories of hardship and pain, but they still were children. Maturity can be gained faster through harsh circumstances, but it was not guaranteed. Mr. Potter, for example, seemed to have difficulty controlling his emotions still, despite everything he had been through. A child. But a sad child. On who had seen far too much. One who had been the receiving end of many destructive plots. Had Artemis ever caused someone's eyes to look like that?

"Your quiz should take no longer than twenty minutes, but I am giving you until the end of the period to do it. Your homework assignment then is to list every curse, counter-curse, jinx, or other battle friendly spell you can remember off the top of your head. I don't want you to do any research for this assignment." There was some cheering. Artemis smirked. They would be doing plenty of research later on. He just wanted to see what spells they truly knew. The quiz was more about situations and creatures than spells.

"When you finish the quiz, please bring it up to my desk and start on your homework." Artemis said, returning to his desk. He looked over his papers for Fowl Industries. He had hired some of the best businessmen to watch his company in his absence, but major decisions still came to him to make. Artemis wasn't sure how he felt about leaving his company in others' hands. At the time, it had seemed like it would be a good idea. His father was there to micro-manage, to make sure they didn't try to steal the company or run it into the ground. Big decisions still came to Artemis. However, it was his company now. His father had officially put him in charge of it since he was now eighteen (at least, it had been eighteen years since he was born and that was what his father went by. Artemis had actually been only living for fifteen years) and Artemis planned to keep it successful while going legal. The more he focused on it, the more queasy he felt about the decision.

A test landed in front of him, cutting off his thoughts as he read the name across the top. Hermione Granger. eight then seven. He looked up to see the brown haired girl looking at him. Or was she looking at his papers? Artemis flipped over the paper regarding company finances to cover the rest.

"Do you have a question Miss Granger?" He asked.

"Yes. Is there a length requirement or limit on the homework assignment?" She asked nicely. Artemis thought for a moment. He wanted then to describe the effects and uses of each spell, but he didn't want to spend longer than 10 minutes reading any individual assignment.

"No more than three sentences per spell description" Artemis replied. Hermione nodded and returned to her desk, pulling out a sheet of parchment and writing furiously. Artemis sighed. The rest of the classes that day (a third year class and a sixth year class) went well. Although, Artemis had to admit, he felt like his fifth year class had the most personality. Artemis, luckily, did not have to sit next to the pink toad at dinner that night. However, he couldn't help but feel as if she was watching him. Artemis had a suspicion as to why, she probably wanted his opinion of Hogwarts as an outsider, but he wanted to stay away from Umbridge. Umbridge. eight letters. four times two. He sighed.

After dinner, Artemis went to the library to read more about Wizards, their history, and in general to just learn more. Picking out a few titles which sounded interesting, Artemis took them back to his office with him. However, on his way, he passed by Umbridge's office. Pausing for a moment just outside the door, Artemis thought to himself. It was clear that Ms. Umbridge planned to speak with him. Perhaps he should be the on to break the ice, it would allow him more control over the conversation and reduce the chances of her trying to speak with him at a bad time. He had nothing to grade, having finished grading the quizzes for his classes just before dinner, and ten minutes spent conversing with someone, no matter how repugnant, was unlikely to affect his schedule. Shifting his books to his other arm, Artemis pulled out his wand and shrunk them. The five books were then deposited in his pockets as he knocked on the door.

"Come in" A voice far too sweet spoke. Artemis opened the door to the pink den. Walking in with purpose, he chose to leave the door open to get some fresh air into the room. Artemis noticed Harry bent over a paper, writing. Lines? What had Potter done to get a detention already? Umbridge seemed to notice Artemis' distraction.

"Mister Potter is serving a detention with me tonight" Artemis frowned. "What did you need me for dear?" Umbridge asked, drawing Artemis' attention away from Harry, who was leaning over his paper oddly.

"I heard that you were looking for me." Artemis responded. Umbridge 'ah'-ed and summoned a chair for Artemis.

"Please, sit down Professor. If I may ask, what is your opinion of Hogwarts?" Ms. Umbridge asked. Artemis sat down in the chair, trying not to be bothered by the color.

"I think that it is a fine establishment for teaching magic, even if it is behind the times" Artemis said. Umbridge nodded, as if agreeing.

"Would you like some tea, Professor Fowl?" She asked succinctly. Artemis shook his head, not trusting her to give him anything of any quality for consumption. "I agree with you completely about Hogwarts being behind the times. This school is in need of a rejuvenation. That is exactly what I plan to do here, Professor Fowl, and I hope to have your support for it." Artemis frowned, it seemed she had misconstrued his honest answer to fit her perception. He had not meant that standards were falling, he meant they were no longer high enough. The modern world was demanding more and more, outdated textbooks no longer cut it, especially with muggle advancements.

The muggles had already almost found the fairies underground, even if it was under the guidance of Opal, it was only a matter of time before they saw the wizards hiding among them. The wizard children needed not only to prepare for life as wizards after school, for which Artemis considered the Hogwarts curriculum to be excellent, but also for the probable soon discovery. They also needed more abstract lessons, things that are not handed over to you with a set of directions requiring no thinking, things like analyzing, politics, philosophy, psychology, and similar studies. Things that taught the students to think more for themselves. However, Artemis did not say anything. If she took his answer in a positive light, it would mean less work fending her off later.

"Perhaps. Why is Mister Potter serving detention, if I may ask?" A vague reply to her implied question and a question on another topic to distract her attention from it. How she responded would also help Artemis to know her psyche.

"I caught him spreading nasty lies about the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Nasty, attention seeking lies." Umbridge said, smirking in Harry's direction when he looked up. He quickly looked down, obviously not going to defend himself, and continued writing his lines.

It was very strange how he was hunched over the paper, hiding the writing with his left hand. It was clearly a forced position, most likely not one that someone would use naturally unless they were hunch-backed. It was an especially strange position for Mister Potter to assume since it was most certainly NOT the position he used while in Artemis' class. Studying him a bit more, Artemis also noticed he was writing with his right hand at an odd angle. Instead of angling his hand as he did normally, Mister Potter was keeping it firmly horizontal from him. Something that Artemis wondered about. It was one thing to hide what he was writing, he could have been messing around, drawing, or writing something else entirely just to make Umbridge angry at him (Why he would do that, especially since it is in no way beneficial to him, Artemis did not know, but he did not eliminate them as possibilities). However, the position his right hand was in only hid one thing, the back of it, at all times. Why would Mister Potter be hiding the back of his right hand?

"I see. Very well then Madam Umbridge, I'm afraid I must leave you know. I have papers to grade, I'm sure you understand. If you have any other questions for me, I will be available again tomorrow" Umbridge frowned at Artemis' abrupt departure. She opened her mouth to say something, but Artemis had already stood up and was almost to the door. Artemis sniffed the air absently as he passed Potter, the light coppery smell confirming his suspicions of the black quill (one which Mister Potter had never before used in Artemis' class). Closing the door behind him, Artemis kept his face composed.

Blood Quills were illegal, but Artemis didn't care about that. What he did care about, though, was that one of his students was in that room having his hand sliced open and being forced to write with his own blood. Artemis, though he highly disagreed with the practice and decided to bring it up with the headmaster, had to grudgingly concede that it was an excellent harsh punishment. Severe enough to really bother the students, but not so severe as to cause irreparable damage, if used correctly. However, Artemis doubted that Umbridge would limit herself to do that. She found too much joy in the student's pain. That was another issue. Umbridge may have been using it as punishment, but with everything going against her already, many of the students were likely to really turn against her with this punishment. If she wanted student support, she shouldn't have started out with such harsh punishment when she already had half the student body against her. Though Artemis could see the benefit in using blood quills for punishment, it was clear that Umbridge was only using them to assuage her own ego and to find enjoyment in the suffering of the children.

Blood Quills. Eleven letters. Artemis shook his head as he walked towards the headmasters office. Arriving at the gargoyle, he spoke the password and let himself in. He knocked gently on the door at the top of the stairs.

"Come in" Dumbledore's voice spoke. Artemis walked in to find Dumbledore rummaging through his desk, looking for something. Raising an eyebrow, Artemis decided to speak without waiting for Dumbledore to give a sign he was listening. Artemis had no doubt that the old man was listening, the way his attention flickered between his desk and Artemis said that much. And it wasn't like Artemis came here to discuss philosophy, he was here to report something he had seen. Although it was a bit insulting to know that he didn't have the headmaster's full attention, Artemis also knew that he didn't need it.

"Are you aware that Umbridge is using Blood Quills in her detentions?" He asked. Dumbledore immediately looked up, giving Artemis his full attention.

"Blood Quills?" He asked hollowly. Artemis nodded. Dumbledore sighed.

"I see. Thank you for telling me. Unfortunately, I cannot do anything about it unless a student reports it also." Artemis nodded. He knew the rules. For the firing of a teacher on the grounds of the teacher having illegal materials, both a student and a teacher needed to report a sighting of the illegal material, then an investigation would start. If the investigation proved conclusive, then the teacher could be fired. It was a long and tedious process, usually taking at least a month after the student and teacher had reported the sighting. Well, Artemis had stepped forward to be the teacher sighting. Now all that was needed was for a student to step forward. Based on how Mister Potter was trying to hide his paper from Artemis, he knew it wouldn't be him. Hopefully one of the other students wouldn't be as stupid.

Artemis nodded and left the room, leaving Dumbledore to continue searching for whatever it was he had lost. Walking back to his room, Artemis collapsed on his chairs, pulled out a book, and started reading.

* * *

"Who can tell me the two main subgroups of Vampires?" Artemis asked. "And a spell you could use against both groups to defend yourself" Miss Granger's hand shot up in the air first, as usual.

"Miss Granger"

"The two main subgroups of Vampires are Physical and Spiritual. Protego works well to defend yourself against both, but will only hold up against Physical Vampires for a few minutes." Hermione said quickly.

"Very good Miss Granger. 5 points to Gryffindor. Can you also tell me the different between the two groups in their feeding habits and their appearances?" Artemis asked, writing the bullet points of her words up on the board.

"Spiritual Vampires feed on emotion, similar to Dementors, life force, magic, or other ephemeral components. In fact, there is some debate about whether or not Dementors should be included in this category. Most Spiritual Vampires take on a very beautiful form to lure their prey into false security, often posing as victims of attack or abuse. They also often feed on a single person for several days, called a 'Haunting', though they usually do not kill their victims, their victims can often kill themselves.

Physical Vampires feed on physical aspects of people, most often blood. They tend to only feed on a given person once, and if they do so twice, it's not on purpose. Certain types kill their prey, while others allow them to live. Their physical appearance is usually very normal, but Physical Vampires which take in an excess of human blood often have different skin tones, usually a darkish purple color."

"Very good. Have another five points." Artemis said, writing what she had said up on the board in bullet point format. "For those of you wondering why we are reviewing Vampires, our first guest speaker will be one." There was a cry of outrage from the green cloaked side of the room. Artemis chose to wait it out.

"I would like to remind you all of the rules I have regarding guest speakers. You will treat them with respect, you will not be complaining about their presence, and you will keep an open mind regarding their opinions. Now, our guest speaker is a Royal Vampire. Who can tell me which subgroup Royal Vampires are under?" Again, Miss Granger's hand shot up into the air. Artemis nodded towards her.

"Royal Vampires are a subgroup of Physical Vampires. Their name comes from their age and their hierarchy, in which a council of nominated Princes rule over the species. Royal Vampires are characterized by two things. First off, is their lack of fangs. Royal Vampires, instead of fangs, have hardened and sharpened nails which they use to draw blood for drinking. Secondly, Royal Vampires are the only known Vampire species which does not have a natural aversion to wolves or werewolves, with the reverse being true as well in that Royal Vampires are the only known Vampire species which wolves and werewolves do not hate. The reason why is a closely guarded secret of the Royal Vampires, though it is believed that the two things are related."

"Very good, have ten points" Artemis replied. Royal Vampires. Thirteen letters. Six then eight. Curious that 'Vampires' should have eight letters, two times four, and that Royal Vampires should have thirteen. If Artemis was a superstitious person, he would have said it was double bad luck since thirteen was bad luck in western society and four was bad luck in both China and Japan. However, Artemis scoffed at things as unprovable as superstition.

"I will not tell you too much about our guest, I will leave that up to him to introduce himself. However, I expect everyone to be on their best behavior. Class dismissed." It had been a very long hour reviewing Vampires and what spells could and couldn't be used against them and, since it was his last class of the day, it was even longer. And still, his day wasn't over. Grading the papers until the sun fell, Artemis kept an eye on the time.

Soon after the sun had set, Artemis gathered his things and dropped them off in his office before leaving the castle. Walking in the dead of night towards the woods, Artemis began to get nervous. It was natural, he assured himself, to be scared. He was in the Forbidden Forest at night, even if he was on the edge. He tried to calm himself by repeating facts to himself. Assuring himself of his safety in this encounter. Tightly gripping his wand, his only way to defend himself, he slowly picked his way into the forest. Hearing a sound, Artemis spun around to face it, only to see nothing. Hundreds of different scenarios of how he could die this night were running through his head. Slowly, Artemis became aware of a gaze upon him. Turning, Artemis found himself facing a pair of bloodthirsty eyes focused entirely on him.

* * *

"I'm heading out for patrol now Foaly, do you still want me to check up on Artemis while I'm up there?" Holly asked over her headset as figured out which shuttle to take.

"Yeah, there's something strange going on with his tracker. As you know, we put one of my newest inventions on him, a VERILIN 67, which is very difficult to make involving lots of nano-technology and..."

"Foaly"

"...can be a bit dangerous though. Yeah?"

"Focus" Holly said. "Artemis. What makes you think something is up?"

"Sorry. My tracker records a lot of things in order to make sure that Artemis doesn't stick it on a dog or something. This includes height from the ground, blood pressure, and walking speed. Most everything is normal. Artemis seems to be following his normal routines, mostly in his house, attending some high society parties, traveling around the world, etc. I haven't really been looking closely at the numbers though and when I looked over them last night, I realized that some of them had been odd for the last several months."

"Last several months? Foaly, that's a long time to have the statistics be off" Holly chided.

"Well, it's really only two things. Blood pressure and pace. I rarely check those as is and I've been really busy the last few months working on a global warming project for the Council. Anyway, I'm sending you frequency of the tracking signal. It's in Omega waves, hiding it completely from human technology. It's revolutionary even for our technology, a new kind of wave related to radio waves of all things..."

"Foaly"

"and all it needs is a touch of uranium to make it work. Sorry" Holly rolled her eyes at Foaly's tangent, waiting impatiently for the signal to appear on the visual screen of her headset.

"So why do you think Artemis' signal is weird anyway?" Holly asked, not daring to complain about how long her headset was taking to load.

"Well, it could be explained by him having a leg injury. But that would be very difficult to accomplish for Artemis. The other possibility is that he put the tracker on someone with similar behaviors to himself or orders to act similar to himself. In other words, a fake. And based on past history, I'm leaning toward the latter." Foaly replied. Holly sighed. Though she trusted Artemis more often than not nowadays, it was always better to be safe. Besides, if it was just a leg injury, then Holly could heal it.

Once the signal loaded, Holly hopped into the shuttle for China. Artemis' signal was coming from a small town in the Tian Shan mountain range, though what kind of profit Artemis hoped to make there, Holly hadn't the faintest idea. She hoped to find him there though, there and with a leg injury. Because, so help her, if she found out that Artemis had put the signal on someone else and had been hiding from them for the last several months, there was going to be hell to pay.

Please Review! Oh, and I really would like a Beta reader. Any volunteers? PM me!


	3. Vampires and Revelations

Major thanks to my new beta reader, karatemaster101! I normally don't write author's notes because I hate word count inflation, but I really have to say this. I'm a huge fan of karatemaster101's work, you should seriously check out their story _King of Serpents_! Again, thank you very much!

* * *

_Dear Butler:_

_While teaching is currently satisfying my curiosity, I find that I cannot ignore the market which will soon open. With our available funds, we can launch a new company in the Wizarding World which will produce defensive magical items such as wards, shields, and detectors. I will admit that I am not the first to think of this idea and that there are already many small companies opening up for this exact purpose. This is where you come in my faithful friend._

_My own money will fund the start-up of the company and will be able to give it a large lead on the other companies. However, I am still working on establishing a reliable name within the Wizarding World, and we need a good name and face for the company. There is a pure blood wizard named Cygnus Hemming who is a much older gentleman. Having remained neutral during the last war, neither side of the upcoming war will distrust him. He is a __well-established __botanist, but is living off a meager wage somewhere in China at the moment. I suspect that if we offer him a decent yearly wage, he will be willing to do the small speeches and sign the papers we require of him. When he is not needed, he may do as he wishes. Find him and make the offer. If he refuses, inform me and I will find someone else who is suitable. If he accepts, stay with him until he is done with the forms I have included._

_-Artemis Fowl II_

Butler sighed, re-reading the letter for the hundredth time. Cygnus was currently in the other room filling out forms for certain buildings in select magical communities to be purchased under his name and for the authorization of a new company. Butler wondered if this was such a good idea, as the wizard had seemed a bit odd to him. The idiot hadn't even realized the danger he was in when Butler threatened him with his trusty Sig Sauer. However, this was Artemis they were talking about. Butler would (and had) trust Artemis with his life. So, he pushed the matter out of his mind and gently put the letter back into his pocket.

Butler did hope that his charge was having fun. It wasn't often that Artemis got to do what he wanted for the sake of doing what he wanted. Of course, it was more often than before Artemis Fowl Senior came back. He had even been considering starting on some kind of global warming project before this whole Wizarding World thing came along. Butler wondered if Artemis was still working on that while there at Hogwarts. Leaning back in his chair, he stretched his arms up over his head, making his back creak. He was glad that Artemis was staying legal nowadays; legality tended to be a little less violent. True, it was less adventurous as well, but he could only take so much in his old age. And besides, Artemis could find adventure wherever he went, legal or not. In any event, _he _was staying mostly legal. Butler felt his hip absently, where the fairy tracker had been inserted just under his skin.

Butler had strict orders to not let the fairies find out about the Wizarding World. In order for this to happen, the fairy tracker had been moved from Artemis' back to Butler's hip, keeping it at the same height because Artemis had little doubt that the fairies would know if he stuck it to a dog. As it was, Artemis had warned Butler to keep his special sunglasses on at all times in order to protect himself from the Mesmer and to see past the fairy shielding. Artemis seemed to think the fairies would find out eventually. They probably would. Their technology was simply far too advanced; even if Artemis could understand it, he couldn't always fight it.

He was probably right. He always was. Usually. Butler sighed once again, patting his Sig Sauer while he waited for whichever poor schmuck of a fairy had to find him.

* * *

Artemis found himself looking at a boy who also appeared to be about his age, maybe a little older. He was dressed in nice clothes, but nothing truly fancy. He had a scar on his face, but it did not harm his appearance. His skin was surprisingly tan and his black hair somewhat tamed. However, the boy was looking at Artemis hungrily. Or, rather, at his arm. Artemis spared his attention for a moment to look and, yes, there was a tiny cut on his arm. It was red, but not even a drop of blood actually fell. It was so small, it was no wonder he hadn't felt it. It was likely from one of the many branches that had poked and prodded him on his walk through the forest. However, the vampire in front of him was clearly focused on that tiny cut. Artemis had suspected that he would need to give blood to his guest, but he had thought it would be in conditions under his control. Someplace where he could draw it out with a _sanitized _needle and put it into a cup. However, this looked like it was not going to be the case. Artemis decided to take his planned approach anyway.

"Hello, you must be the representative of the Royal Vampire Clan. My name is Artemis Fowl II. What is yours?" Artemis asked, holding his arm, the one that didn't have a cut on it, out to shake hands. The boy's eyes snapped from the arm to Artemis, as if coming out of a trance. Well, that was reassuring at least. He stepped forward.

"My name is Prince Darren Shan, and yes, I am the representative we chose." Darren Shan. Six then four. He stepped forward as well, shaking Artemis' hand. His grip was firm, but not painful. "I'm afraid that I will not be able to be here for the full amount of time you requested, there is some urgent business between our clan and another. I will have to leave a day early." Artemis nodded. The first years and the third years would not get to hear from him then, but they might get to do so another year.

"That is acceptable. Anything else?" Artemis asked.

"Yes. Blood." Well, at least Darren was blunt. Artemis usually liked bluntness, but he did wish that Darren had waited to ask about that.

"You can feed off me for the duration of your stay," Artemis said. Darren smiled and, with what he had apparently interpreted as permission, grabbed Artemis' arm before he had a chance to blink. There was a stinging pain in his arm as Darren's nails cut it open along the smaller cut he had received during his walk, and then his mouth bit down. Artemis made no movements, frozen to the spot. He was split.

On one hand, how often were you conscious when your blood was being sucked by a Vampire? The tiny childish part of Artemis' mind which he had so carefully hidden was giddy. However, the high majority of his mind was disgusted. He had no idea where that mouth had been. Who else's blood he had sucked? Artemis knew that Vampires couldn't pass diseases around like mosquitoes did, because their saliva was toxic to nearly all bacteria and viruses, a way to clean the blood before ingesting it and to make sure they don't kill off their own prey, but he couldn't help wondering if he would be that one in a million person who got a deadly disease from a Vampire that sucked his blood. And, even more importantly, the sheer indignity of being reduced to prey was insulting. He was Artemis, named after the Greek goddess of the hunt; he was the predator. The rest of the world was the prey.

Was this how those people felt, when Artemis hunted them? When Artemis tore into opposing companies, or tracked down those who had wronged him? When he was a criminal mastermind, one of the most feared people in the underworld, was this how his victims felt? Helpless? Like prey? Artemis had once reveled in the glory of causing those feelings. Of making his opponents realize they were utterly and truly trapped, truly beaten, with no hope. Artemis felt like he was going to be sick.

Darren pulled away from Artemis' arm, pulling out a bandage from a back pocket. He put it on Artemis' arm with a surprising gentleness and smiled sheepishly at Artemis.

"Sorry about that. I haven't fed in a few days and I definitely couldn't go into an entire school full of magic kids without feeding some beforehand. I will need more blood before I leave, but otherwise I should be fine." Artemis nodded, not trusting himself to speak at the moment. He turned and began walking back towards Hogwarts, being careful not to do so abruptly. He didn't want a vampire with hurt feelings staying with him. Leading the way, Artemis guided Darren through the maze of Hogwarts to his rooms. A temporary room had been set up next to his own, and it was that room which Darren would be borrowing during his stay there. Artemis opened the door to the room and let Darren in before leaving to go to his office.

Collapsing in the chair, Artemis looked at the five books he had checked out from the library a couple of days ago. It was strange that he had five books. He really could only remember grabbing four. Oh, sure, he remembered checking out five, shrinking five, unshrinking five, and overall having five books. But he only remembered grabbing four books from the shelves. And, even more perplexing, was the subject matter of the fifth book. Romantic poems. Artemis had always loved poetry, but poetry for the sake of beautiful poetry, not this dribble. He had flipped through it; they were all simple ABAB style poems, lacking in vocabulary and original descriptions. It was a book full of cheesy, low-quality romance poems. Even when he read poetry, he rarely read _romance _poetry. For the life of him, Artemis could not figure out why he had checked out the book. It was why he held on to it. Sighing, Artemis dropped the book and moved to his room to get ready for bed.

* * *

"There are several different types of Vampires. The main reason for this is that 'Vampire' is actually a very broad term which is technically only defined as a creature which feeds primarily on humans. Under this definition, even Dementors can be considered Vampires."

Artemis sat in the back of the classroom, a notebook open but the page blank. He had heard this same speech four times already. It consisted of roughly seven hundred words, give or take a few depending on Darren's ability to remember what he was supposed to say. Artemis took any notes from the speech the first time he had heard it; he now only had the notebook with him both out of habit and because one of these kids might actually ask something interesting at some point. It was currently the fifth year class, Darren's last class before he had to go. Fifth time, fifth years. Artemis faintly wondered at the coincidence before brushing it out of his head.

Well, even if it was boring to Artemis after hearing it so many times, at least the students seemed interested. Darren was a pretty good speaker. He was active, engaging, and not afraid to point at the students and ask their opinions. He did not shoot down the Slytherin boy when he proclaimed that Vampires were beasts which were lower than wizards; instead he simply nodded his head and said, 'thank you for sharing your opinion' and moved on. Malfoy was left gaping in surprise. Artemis wondered if he truly believed what he said, was trained to say it, or was simply looking for attention, positive or negative. He thought it was probably a combination of the latter two. Thus, why the boy continued to pick on Potter.

"The deadliest type is probably the Lure Vampire. Well known for being frozen in time, they appear to be some of the most beautiful people on earth" Darren was strutting around the room. "However, among Vampires, they are also known for being the messiest eaters" He spoke with a cold tone.

"They tear apart their prey, ripping them limb from limb and devour everything that they can," he added, leering at one of the students.

A student, Granger, raised her hand. Darren stood up straight and nodded to her.

"Professor, what's your least favorite kind of Vampire?" She asked. Artemis clicked his pen to write, wondering about the answer himself. Darren paused for a moment, thinking.

"My own species of Vampires holds a general dislike of the Vampaneze for historical reasons, but personally, my least favorite kind would have to be Spirit Vampires. They are horrible intelligent beings that select a victim and ruin their lives, feeding on their sorrow. One particularly vicious Spirit Vampire I had the pleasure to encounter had kidnapped a little girl from a low-income family and demanded a ransom." As Darren spoke, the disgust in his words was apparent. Artemis pursed his lips slightly and his grip on his pen tightened, even as he continued taking notes. A vision of Holly locked up in his basement came to the front of his mind.

"Even though the Vampire returned the little girl, the ransom required meant the family lost everything they had and they were stuck on the streets. Their sorrow fed the Vampire for months while their money gave him a place to live." Artemis wondered if the fairies had been having any financial trouble when he demanded his metric ton of gold from them. No, he reminded himself, they may not have liked parting with that much gold, but they could afford it. But he hadn't known that at the time. At the time, he didn't have close connections with LEP. He didn't know Foaly. He didn't really know Holly. At the time, he had no idea how precarious a position he had put her in. One of her first missions above ground as the first female officer allowed in LEP, and she gets kidnapped and loses the force a metric ton of gold. It's true that he didn't know a lot of things back then, but he also didn't consider them as possibilities.

And there were more things similar to this that he had done. Far crueler. Conning hundreds of families, stealing from banks, investing in drug lords. Holly wasn't the first person he had kidnapped, either. As if. Though none of his other kidnap/ransom victims had been brought to his house. He couldn't have the police connecting him to those kidnappings, after all.

As Artemis looked at the terror filled faces of the students, he realized that he was feeling very little emotion. That idea made his stomach twist. Empathy. He had been lacking in empathy. He knew he wasn't autistic in any way, he was fully capable of understanding others emotions and how to use them to his advantage.

_To his advantage_.

Perhaps, his difficulty with empathy stemmed not from genetics, but from his childhood. Before his father had disappeared and when he felt he needed to destroy his empathy in order to commit the crimes that were required of him. Artemis felt himself smirking slightly; sometimes having a degree in psychology was useful.

Darren finished up his speech to the class, asking if they had any more questions. When no one raised their hand, he nodded and turned the class over to Artemis.

"I want fifteen inches on what you learned today, including your honest opinion about it. The person who writes the best paper will get some money for the Hogsmeade trip this month. The person who does the worst will be serving detention unless they get at least an E as their grade. Dismissed." As the students started packing up Artemis turned to Darren.

"Well, I'll go pack up and head on out. You have a teacher's meeting to get to now, right?" Darren asked, shrugging his shoulders. Artemis nodded, thinking.

"Alrighty then, See ya 'round" He said, turning to leave. Artemis spoke up.

"How did you learn to accept it?" Darren faced Artemis again, the confusion apparent on his face. Artemis clarified his question.

"How did you learn to accept causing pain to others? How did you accept your friend's death?" Darren looked somber for a moment, thinking it over before replying carefully.

"I've learned to accept hurting others for their blood because I need it to survive. The only person I've ever killed was my friend, Sam, and in doing so I was accepting his final gift to me. He already had a fatal wound, by finishing him off, I took his soul into mine and carry his memory with me. That's why the Vampaneze consider it honorable to finish off their victims, you know, as much as I hate it. And I've never killed in cold blood." Darren said. "Does that answer your question?" He asked. Artemis nodded. Darren looked at Artemis' contemplative face for a moment before leaving the room.

It answered the question, but not in the way he had hoped. After all, Artemis had killed people in cold blood before. Or, at least, had given the order to do it. Darren was a Vampire, one of the darkest creatures to walk the earth, and he had still never killed someone in cold blood. He had never held people hostage, never caused pain where he could prevent it, and was able to excuse what pain he did cause. Artemis didn't have any such excuses. Had he fallen below the Vampire?

He smirked darkly before walking out of the room and down the halls to the teacher's meeting. Opening the door, he was glad to note that he was not last. Being the youngest teacher, there was already an enormous lack of respect from some of the others and he didn't wish to antagonize the situation. The teacher's lounge was very pleasant looking: several large chairs and couches located around the room decorated in the many colors of the different houses. Somehow, the colors actually managed to work. Artemis' inner fashion sense could not help but be both appalled and intrigued. Sitting himself in a large red and blue chair, Artemis waited. A few minutes later, a particularly harried looking Professor Flitwick came running in through the door.

"Sorry about that, someone pranked the Lovegood girl again and I had to help her," he explained, short of breath.

"You see, Dumbledore, this is exactly what I'm talking about. The children at Hogwarts are running rampant and need to be controlled." Umbridge spoke condescendingly, before turning to Flitwick and asking, "Is the poor dearie okay?" Though it was clear that she didn't care much, she just wanted an excuse to ignore Dumbledore's reply to her rebuke. Flitwick, clearly unfamiliar with the predatory attention, simply nodded before giving his attention to Dumbledore.

"Well, now that we are all here, I believe it is time for me to make a few announcements. OWLs this year will be held from June 9th to June 20th, and NEWTs from June 13th to June 25th. The specific days and times of when your subject area will be tested will be sent to you later this year. Also, some small changes. Artemis, we are receiving several letters complaining about your guest speaker. Though I understand he had excellent behavior while here, I must ask that in the future you please give the students permission slips for their parents to sign. Also, I'm terribly sorry Minerva, but our funding has been cut once again and I'm afraid that I will have to cut the 7th year Human Transfiguration class. Lastly, Dolores had a few words she would like to say." Dumbledore ended with a cheery tone, completely negating the previously negative atmosphere and acting as if everything was fine. Umbridge stood up and held her head up high. Artemis may have hated her, but he had to give her points for confidence.

"The minister, after reading my reports on Hogwarts, has decided that it is time for me to start watching each teacher personally. I will be sending you each a note with the scheduled date and time in the near future, but I thought that I should give you fair warning. The Ministry takes the education of children very seriously and if any of you are found lacking, you will be sacked. That is all." She said promptly, before sitting back down in her fluffy yellow and green chair.

"Any questions?" Dumbledore asked, opening the room up to discussion. Unfortunately for him, no one there felt inclined to speak freely in front of Umbridge. Or perhaps it was fortunate. Either way, he dismissed the teachers and they were allowed to return to their rooms.

* * *

"Hey! Give that back!"

"Yeah right, Gryffindork!" Artemis was blank faced as he walked around the corner and found two 7th years Slytherins tossing a camera between them and a 4th year Gryffindor student nearly in tears trying to get it back.

"Halevue, Bontamoth, ten points off of Slytherin each and hand me the camera now or it'll be another ten," Artemis said coldly. The two Slytherins looked at each other and scowled before one of them walked forward and handed the camera to Artemis. They both started walking away and Artemis decided to ignore them, even when one of them gave him the bird when they thought he wasn't looking. Creevey, the Gryffindor, ran up to him.

"Thank you, Professor," he said, blushing a bit. Artemis looked at him; it was pretty clear he was embarrassed. Probably because he had been saved by a teacher; many students thought to deal with bullies on their own. Artemis nearly sighed in annoyance.

"Creevey, you don't need to be afraid to ask for help. Listen very carefully, if you try to do things on your own, it will only go badly. No one is a one man team. You may not be stronger than them, but you can be smarter than them! The worst they could possibly do to your camera is break it, and a camera is easily fixed or replaced. However, if it became more serious and they cursed you, well, 7th year students know some pretty bad curses, Creevey." Artemis handed the camera back to him and Creevey took it, still blushing a bit. "Look, if that happens again, just come and find me, okay?"

Creevey nodded before dashing off towards the Gryffindor common room. Artemis ran his hand through his hair, fixing the strand that had come loose while he had been talking. Creevey. 7 letters. That was the most magical number, according to Wizarding superstition. Arriving back in his room, Artemis found himself looking at the book of cheesy love poems again. He resolved to return it the next day since he wasn't going to learn any more about it and his actions from re-reading it. And besides, just looking at it gave him headaches. Sitting at his desk, Artemis contemplated writing to Butler. As much as he missed his old friend though, he couldn't be sure that the fairies weren't watching him and if an owl flew in, they would definitely be suspicious.

Wishing to speak with Butler inspired Artemis to work a bit more on one of his many small projects. Sliding open his top drawer, he pulled out the remains of a cell phone and some pieces of fairy technology and began tinkering.

* * *

Butler was startled, when the figure first showed up at the window. Of all the fairies for them to send, it had to be her. Well, at least she wouldn't suspect anything. She was flying past the window and probably around the house, trying to figure out a way to get in without letting the people inside know. Of course, the fairy law about never entering a house without permission was definitely hindering her.

Butler sighed and decided to take pity. Loading his gun and hiding it, he opened the front door and stepped out, closing it behind him carefully. Seeing Holly fly towards him slowly, Butler pulled out the gun quickly, his aim true as always, and fired.


	4. It's A Pink Life

The specially made tranquilizer dart flew straight and true into the veins of her neck, right into the sliver of skin showing between her thermal suit and her helmet. Holly was awake long enough to have her eyes widen in shock and betrayal as she glared at him, before her head slipped down and she was unconscious. The mechanical wings on her back, without her steering them, kept her hovering there in the air. Butler loaded a real bullet into his gun and fired again, destroying the wings and dropping Holly a few feet to the ground. He knew she was fine; it was only a few feet and she had landed on snow. Her suit was doubtlessly thermal. However, Butler did know that he and Cygnus had to get out of there before more showed up; he could hear Foaly panicking from her helmet. Butler gently picked up Holly's body and deposited her on the far side of a large boulder. He kicked a bit of snow over her to cover her up before returning to the hut and shouting to Cygnus.

Within an hour, every sign of life was gone from the hut except for a single tracking chip, left sitting on the table.

* * *

Artemis flipped through the poetry book once more blearily. He had woken up fairly early that morning, having wanted to be rid of the blasted thing as soon as possible. In addition to that, a small jaunt to the library an back seemed like a good way to wake him up. It wasn't too far, so it wasn't strenuous, but it was enough of a walk to get his blood pumping. Handing the book back to Madam Pince, and now down to the four books which he had originally retrieved, Artemis stepped out of the library.

He'd hardly taken a few steps when a small pink paper airplane came flying towards him. Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, he opened the paper airplane. Sure enough, it was the time and date of his 'inspection' from Umbridge. Today, during his fourth year class. Silently folding up the letter, he put it into his pocket and began to walk back towards his office.

Artemis sat down at his desk and looked carefully at the small treasure he had nearly finished. He had another half hour until breakfast, so there was plenty of time to finish. Picking up the pieces he had so painstakingly made the previous night, Artemis carefully pieced them together. He checked over every section before connecting them to make sure that they still worked. When he finally got all the pieces together, he had a single, slightly odd looking, cell phone in front of him. Artemis allowed himself to smile at his accomplishment. It was a carefully made amalgamation of fairy and human technology, ultimately designed to work specifically in magical areas.

The reason that most muggle devices stopped working in magical areas was because magic ruined the flow of electricity, making it more erratic and unpredictable than normal. This normally manifested itself in the electrical flow not following the circuit in the way it was supposed to, causing it to fry. Other times, it manifested itself in the battery itself, causing it to spontaneously gain energy, loose energy, change to positive or negative charge (which could fry the cathodes), or other similar scenarios. The first step to solving this problem had been the power source, which Artemis had decided to make magic. He constructed a fake battery, containing no electricity but instead a potion for magic storage (normally used to increase the potency of various potions or as a quick energizer for wizards). He then used fairy technology to adjust the circuit boards and the overall construction of the phone to adapt it to running off of magic instead of electricity.

Overall, simple. Artemis knew it would work in magical areas, but the battery would die within minutes of being taken outside of a magical area. It looked like the real challenge would be in constructing a phone that could be used in magical and non-magical areas. However, this would work for now.

Leaning back in his chair, Artemis dialed Butler's phone number. Checking the time, he decided that he should leave in the next few minutes if he wanted to have enough time to comfortably eat breakfast. The phone rang for several seconds, but all Artemis received for the wait was a voice mail.

Artemis looked at the phone for a few minutes, wondering why Butler wasn't picking up his phone, before he shrugged it off. Butler must have been busy for some reason. Artemis didn't think that there was anything going on in Butler's life right now that was so stressful and hectic that he couldn't answer the phone, but he could be wrong. It was rare, but possible. Artemis placed the phone on the edge of his desk before leaving to eat.

Artemis would later look back on the class and think to himself that he should have known ahead of time. It was, after all, during his fourth year class. Fours seemed to be having a recent habit of being bad for him, however illogical it might seem. After all, four was just like any other number. Even if 'Umbridge' has eight letters, two times four, and it was during his fourth year class, and he had four pages of class notes in preparation for the day. Four fours. Four squared. Four was just a number.

That's right, Artemis would later look back and ask himself why he didn't see the signs, but at this moment Artemis was blissfully unaware of the disaster which would soon start. Artemis, instead, was taking attendance.

His four pages of class notes were stacked nicely on his desk, memorized. Umbridge sat in a corner, looking at him with those beady eyes settled in the pudgy folds of her toad-like visage. The fourth year students were sitting nicely in their desks, looking up at him with their usual half blank half attentive looks. Artemis didn't really care too much about whether or not they were paying attention, it wasn't his problem if someone wanted to remain an ignoramus. It just made it easier for him to take advantage of them. After all, that's all most of these students would become; customers. A way for Artemis to increase his power and wealth.

But that's not all they were, was it? Artemis had made sure to make it his business to know what was going on in the student's lives. It's always good to know how to make a person emotionally unstable. It made them open, vulnerable, ripe for conning. As Artemis spoke on emergency response routine, he slowly paced in front of the desk.

"The first thing you need to do when you discover an injured person is check their status." Why? It seemed like the far more practical thing would be to insure that whatever hurt them isn't still around. Set up your defenses, then take care of the injured.

"It does not take much time, do you all know the life detection spell?" Several heads nodded. Good, they should have learned it in second year. He didn't want to have to review what should be age old information for the students. He never really did fully understand how some people could be so lazy as to forget basics.

"You should cast it immediately, to figure out whether or not someone is still alive, before working to protect yourself and the person." A light _hem hem_ interrupted his point. Artemis stoically nodded towards Umbridge. "Is there something you would like to say?"

"Yes. Professor, what do you mean by 'still alive'?" Umbridge spoke, her smile becoming a little tight. Artemis blinked.

"I mean exactly what I said. You should always check if someone is still alive, there's no point in trying to protect a dead body" He replied.

"Yes, when you say protect, from what do you mean, exactly? Who out there would want to harm schoolchildren?" She asked.

"I am teaching them the proper legal procedure for emergencies. It is designed to be applicable to all ages with specific adjustments depending on a wizards capabilities" Artemis responded, trying to stay away from the bait. If he stuck with legal reasoning, there was nothing she could do against him. Although, he had thought that she was on his side. When he had spoken with her at Potter's detention, she had seemed relatively fond of him. Had something happened to turn her against him? Was someone undermining his manipulations?

"There is no reason why fourth year students should need to respond to emergencies. That is a job belonging to Aurors." Umbridge spoke, her smile turning thinner and her face a little blushing with anger.

"I am just trying to make sure that the students are capable of taking care of themselves if something happened . Emergencies can happen anywhere and at anytime, that is why they are called emergencies. They tend to emerge where you least expect it," Artemis said, trying to calm her down

"Are you threatening me?!" Umbridge barked. Artemis froze. Never before had his words been so horribly misconstrued.

"Not at all," he tried to placate her, "you are entirely correct, fourth year students should not need to deal with life or death situations, but sometimes something bad happens and I don't want any student to lose a friend because they did not know what to do." The image of Butler lying on the ground flashed in front of Artemis' eyes. Bleeding out from the bullet in his chest. The panic, the fear that had filled his mind(though he managed to maintain his logical facilities). That's right. That's why you had to check for life first. Because that person on the ground might be important to somebody. You not checking for life first might mean their death. Even another second later for Butler could have meant his death. Would have meant his death. Artemis knew that he could technically live past Butler's death, even get himself a new bodyguard (that is, after all, what Juliet is training to be) but he didn't know if he could survive emotionally. Contrary to popular (Holly's) belief, he was not heartless. He was not emotionless. He just chose logic over emotion at all times.

"Then you should be teaching the students to call for the Aurors, not to respond themselves!" Umbridge nearly shouted. If Artemis had waited for Holly to get there, Butler would have died. He had to respond himself at the time, he had to do whatever he could to ensure Butler's life.

"Sometimes there isn't enough time to call for Aurors first, if a student is in danger they need to be able to protect themselves" Artemis said, maintaining a calm atmosphere. He refused to lose his temper to this woman's horrible attempts at manipulating him. Umbridge smirked, as if she thought she had caught him.

"When would a student be in danger?" She asked smugly. She was practically daring him to bring up Voldemort, but Artemis knew better. By far.

"Two years ago, there was a werewolf on campus which nearly attacked some students," Artemis said, working to construct an argument, but he was interrupted.

"Don't you bring Professor Lupin into this!" Creevey jumped up.

"Yeah, he was the best DADA teacher we ever had!" Weasley added. Artemis wanted to roll his eyes. He had never met his predecessor, he didn't care to, and whether or not he was a good teacher was completely irrelevant to the current debate.

"Mr. Creevey, Ms. Weasley, sit down," he said sternly, turning to Umbridge to see her making a note on her paper. Probably something about how he couldn't control his class. Why had she turned against him? He could have sworn that he had won her over at Potter's detention. Who had manipulated her against him? Should he be worried about this mysterious puppeteer?

"That was a tragic error on the part of the Headmaster, one which helped to further prove the Ministries point of Hogwarts being in desperate need of reform. It will not happen again. So I will ask again, what danger is there to students?" Umbridge asked, smiling a pinched smile. The argument she had presented was a blanket argument that covered all dangers on Hogwarts grounds, and she would refuse to acknowledge other situations with her Auror argument. It was a brick wall not built on logic, but built on stubbornness.

Artemis despised that kind of logic for the simple fact that it were formed on blind faith, and was therefore impossible to tear down. At least, not without more time and power. Right now, the further he pushed, the more she would resist, and he wanted to keep his job. Besides, he always won in the end.

"You're absolutely right," He said quite calmly. Umbridge paused and looked at him with confusion. "Don't worry, I will continue the lesson appropriately," he assured. And he did, telling the students about how they should contact Aurors. Still useful information, at least, though it wasn't the main thing he wanted to cover until the next class period. Luckily, there were only a few minutes left of class, so it wasn't too much damage done and Umbridge would only be sitting in on one or two of his classes. However, at the last minute, he waved his wand to conjure a sheet of paper on everyone's desk.

"This is your homework assignment, I expect it next class," he said. Across the top of the paper, it read;

_Research the emergency response routine according to ministry regulations and write 6 inches explaining what you are supposed to do as 4__th__ year students if you encounter an unknown hostile opponent._

Artemis went about cleaning up as the students hastily stuffed the paper into their bags. He was quite sure that Umbridge hadn't seen it as she shuffled out of the class, smiling. However, she clearly suspected something of him. The next day, Artemis was quite sure that someone had shown her the homework or that she had seen it.

He was going to breakfast when he saw Filch out in the hall hanging up a new educational decree. He paused to read over it.

'_Educational degree #35_

_Teachers are to only assign homework directly relevant to the topic they covered in class'_

Three plus five equals eight. Artemis read over it coldly. It didn't really mean much because his homework assignment was related to what he had been teaching in class, but it was clear that it was an attack against him. Artemis narrowed his eyes, but walked into the Great Hall proudly, as he did each morning. The next few weeks went by quickly. Umbridge dropped in on another class, so Artemis improvised quickly to look like he wasn't teaching them anything of worth. He then assigned them 10 inches of homework to make up for it. His forays into the wizarding market seemed to have gone well, but he was still having difficulty getting into touch with Butler with his phone, having to rely on the slow speed of owl post.

It was actually rather frustrating; Artemis didn't doubt that Butler was probably making some decisions that he shouldn't be making based on his inability to contact his employer. He had actually begun to look around to see if there was someone else he could hire with more business experience, but no one he found seemed trustworthy enough. Every one of them would stab him in the back and take over the young company he had founded. It seemed Artemis had no other choice but to desperately hope Butler was actually following his orders.

Time came and went and it wasn't long before it was time for the first Hogsmeade trip.

Artemis had decided not to go. It was not terribly exciting as teachers were allowed to go to Hogsmeade anytime they wanted. Soon enough, it was a full Monday of classes once more. He was just leaving the Great Hall after breakfast when he heard Dumbledore speaking with someone. Ducking behind a statue, he silently thanked his genetics for his small size.

"A defense group?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes, apparently the students are worried that they are not prepared enough for Voldemort," said the other man. Dumbledore 'hm'ed and Artemis could picture the old man stroking his beard.

"I see..." he said, clearly lost in thought.

"Well, I thought you should know. See ya," the other voice said, before retreating.

"Ah, thank you Aberforth!" Dumbledore called out, though there was no response. The other guy seemed pretty eager to leave. Artemis could hear Dumbledore walking down the hall towards him, so he back-pedaled down the hall he had been coming and walked back past the Great Hall towards his office. He absently noted that a new educational decree was up, telling everyone to disband student organizations. A defense group to fight Voldemort? There was only one kid who could and would pull off something like that, and that was Mr. Potter. Why, though? Did the kids not trust in his teaching capabilities? Was he a bad teacher for some reason? Why didn't they trust him?

Artemis pursed his lips slightly. If someone didn't trust you, you couldn't trust them. Artemis wasn't sure why he ever thought he had student's trust. Of course they didn't trust him! He was a new teacher, taking up the post where many teachers had failed beforehand. He was comparatively young, it probably made many of the older students unsure. What about the younger students? Well, peer pressure is a much stronger influence on most people's minds than that of teachers, they were probably following the older students like sheep. Thinking about the educational decree, Artemis realized that she had to know about the defense group. How? Did she have some way of spying on the students? It had to be better than Dumbledore since he didn't know until today, but Umbridge knew soon enough to get the paperwork through for the new decree posted this morning. Could she spy on the teachers as well? Could she spy on him?

Artemis opened the door to his office and stalked over to his desk, sitting rather demurely and not betraying his inner, conflicting thoughts. However, those thoughts ground to a halt when he looked down at his desk. Hadn't there been five writing utensils there when he left his office last night? Yes, there had been. A black pen, a blue pen, the feather quill gifted to him by the headmaster, a mechanical pencil, and a 'signature Jade Princess' pen from Juliet. His blue pen was now missing. Frowning, Artemis scoot his chair back a little, looking around at the floor to see if it had fallen. Indeed, it had, it was about a meter from his current location having clearly rolled across the floor. Artemis stood, walked over, and picked it up.

How did it fall? He did not bump into his desk coming in, and he was quite sure that he did not do so on his way out. However, pens do not fall off desks without provocation. They were not anywhere near a fault line, so the chances of a micro-earthquake happening while he slept were very small. The single window in the room was shut and bolted, just like always, so wind couldn't do it. That ruled out the weather. That left two other options; either a pet had come into the office or a person had come into the office and Artemis was inclined to think it was the latter. There was no way for an animal to get in, but a person could force his door open.

Artemis gently replaced the pen on his desk, carefully lining it up to be parallel with the other writing utensils. Who could have come in without leaving a mark on the door? The teachers, perhaps, or maybe even some of the upperclassmen. After all, though Artemis had passed all the official tests and had done his own forays into magical theory and defense, he didn't know everything. He was a genius, true, but he had only been studying magic for about a year and a half. The upperclassmen had much more time and practice under their belts, experience which may be able to thwart Artemis' locking skills. The teachers even more so.

Who would sneak into his office? Who might have the motivation? Again, students; they could look at grades, tests, or even try to prank him as a joke. Had Umbridge come in? But she had access to Ministry records, there was nothing she could learn from his office that wasn't in the Ministry except for his research. Come to think of it, it could have been another teacher as well. They could be after his research. He had started publishing under his own name in order to start building a reputation since he was now old enough to be believed by most readers as being a person of authority.

He really should have known better. He had made himself a target for research theft by opening up too early. All it would take would be one person, just one person to publish some of his research and claim it as their own. His reputation would be flushed and he, as the younger and therefore the one who was more likely to steal, would be forever labeled as a thief. He may have once been a thief, but he was one no longer and he refused to be labeled with such a demeaning title when he didn't deserve it.

If his reputation was trashed, the Fowl empire would slowly crumble from dissatisfaction and a lack of confidence. After all, if the 'genius inventor' is stealing his ideas from other sources, he was going to get sued five times over and that might drive the company to bankruptcy. Or, even worse, if they stole his research and knew about the possible consequences for him, they could use it as blackmail and he would be forced to obey or risk his entire operation. Artemis refused to take orders from anybody.

Whipping out his wand, Artemis quietly spoke the password to open his drawer. After, he removed one of the few rings he was wearing, clicking the outer shell on it back to reveal a small key. Pulling it out, Artemis shoved the key into a small hole in the side of the desk, unlocking the drawer and causing it to pop out. Artemis quickly picked up his papers and flipped through them. Counting silently to himself, he nearly sighed in relief when he realized he still had all 75 pages of experiment notes and his two main reference books. He had to put them somewhere safer. Artemis had put a lot of time into designing and installing the key system in his desk, though, and it was the safest place he knew of. Ignoring the uneasy feeling in his stomach, Artemis replaced the papers and books and locked up the drawer once more.

The question remained then, if the perpetrator wasn't after his research, what were they after? Why would they come into his office? What did they want from him? Artemis slowly began conducting a thorough investigation of his office, opening various drawers carefully as he tried to find hints of the culprit and the crime. However, as he was unable to find anything, Artemis stepped into the center of the room, giving a cursory glance to see if he had missed something. The moment he did, though, he felt the slightest slip of his foot, as if he had stepped on ice, lasting for only a moment. A detection spell! And one that wasn't his! Quickly pulling out his wand, Artemis ducked down and rolled away from the spot to avoid being hit by whatever curse the trap had activated.

Looking back at the spot where he had been, Artemis saw a bucket of bright pink paint fall to right where he had been standing, covering the floor. Artemis stood up slowly and walked over to the pink mess. A single note was fluttering down from where the bucket had been. Artemis didn't chase it, knowing he didn't have the dexterity to catch a paper in the air, and instead waved his wand. The paper flew up and hovered in front of him. It was just a stick figure smiling and sticking his tongue out.

Artemis absently muttered as he waved his wand, vanishing the note, paint, and the bucket, though a persistent pink stain remained on the floor. Artemis narrowed his eyes, a cursed trap indeed! How could he even think that a cursed trap was his primary theory? He was in a school, a school with a few notorious pranksters, why would his first instinct be to suspect it was a life-threatening trap?

Perhaps it was because of the way the last several years of his life had been. Life-threatening situations happened more often to Artemis than he was comfortable with, perhaps it was just his first instinct to assume danger than not? Besides, those instincts had saved him from being dyed a terrible shade of pink. Far more dignified to react to a false danger than to not react and be caught off guard. Artemis sighed. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

"...bio-sensors in your suit say that you're not in life threatening danger, so I can't send you help unless you respond! Holly, say something!" The panicking voice of the centaur greeted Holly as she slowly woke.

"Ugh..." He groan seemed to shock Foaly into an even greater frenzy.

"Holly?! Oh D'arvit, you had me really worried! Your bio-sensors said you were fine, but you wouldn't respond and what in the world happened?!" Holly sat up, shaking snow off her shoulders and suit. She reached down where she saw a few objects surrounded by a couple red specks. Picking it up, she started growling.

"Do you know what I am holding right now Foaly?" She asked. He paused in his speaking for a moment to let her continue. "I am currently holding a dart. Do you know who shot me with this dart Foaly? Butler." Foaly let out a barely audible breath over the headsets.

"If Butler shot you, then he's trying to keep Artemis' movements secret, which means that whatever Artemis is doing is probably something we would disapprove of," Foaly realized, echoing Holly's own thoughts.

"I am going to kill that Mud Boy," She muttered.


	5. Approaching Doom

"Professor Fowl wasn't pink this morning," Fred said, looking around the Umbridge's office.

"No my dear brother, it would seem as though he is just as good at evading our pranks as the other teachers," George said sorrowfully, waving his wand. A bucket of Permanent Pink Paint (also known as PPP or the 'Really Long P' by the brothers) levitated slowly to the ceiling.

"Well, let's hope that Madam Umbridge is not nearly as successful," Fred said, walking around the room. He stopped when he saw the papers on her desk **-** files of the other teachers. Smirking, he silently picked them up.

"Georgie, perhaps she would be a bit more inclined to change color with a bit of bait," he said. Fred walked over towards where George was hanging up the bucket and set the teacher files on the ground beneath it. On the top of the pile was the file of one Professor Fowl with his blood status – muggleborn – circled several times in angry red, and "Mudblood" scrawled across it.

* * *

Artemis nearly growled, throwing the phone he had worked so hard to make across the room. It was strange, he mused;he had been angry before, many times in fact, but he had always worked through it coolly and sought revenge coldly. However, this...incident...as Artemis would later refer to it, was akin to throwing a tantrum.

Butler wasn't answering. The area he was supposed to be in had cell service; Artemis had checked earlier. So why wasn't he answering!? Butler could have moved, if the fairies had found him already. But no, there was no reason for them to go looking for him. He had been very careful with the tracking device in moving it to Butler, and unless it was measuring more than he had initially thought, it shouldn't have been able to tell the difference. Unless, Butler had tipped off the fairies about him!

But no, Butler wouldn't do that. He was loyal. Completely loyal. Right?

Domovoi Butler. 12 letters, a multiple of 4. Artemis bit his lip as he noticed that his little tantrum had upset the five writing utensils on his desk. Absently adjusting the feather quill so that it once more lined up with the others, he straightened the small pile of papers and walked out of his office.

Upon entering the dining hall, however, he couldn't help but be surprised. He had heard about Hagrid, the half-giant who was temporarily gone, but he hadn't quite comprehended what that meant. The man sitting at the staff table was much larger than Butler. In fact, his feet might have been the same size as the entire body ofone of Artemis' brothers. Miles might have come up to this man's shin. And, unfortunately for Artemis, the last remaining seat was next to the rather large man. He silently walked up and took the seat without any sign of his discomfort.

"'Ello, you mus' be Professor Fowl! I'm Hagrid, Care o' Magical Creatures," Hagrid said, holding out a hand. Artemis couldn't help but noticed it was oddly colored, as if the man had been holding something which stained his hands. Artemis really didn't want to shake it, but it would be rude not to.

"Hello Professor, you are correct in your assumption," Artemis said quickly, dropping his hand after shaking Hagrid's. He silently wiped it on the napkin on his lap and hoped that whatever was on the other man's hands wasn't harmful. He had to admit, he did wish that Hagrid emphasized his words a bit more**;** he hated having to deal with boorish speech.

"'Ow are you settlin' in?" He asked. Well, even if Hagrid spoke oddly, at least he seemed like a kind-hearted individual. Of course, appearances could be deceiving. For all he knew, that substance on Hagrid's hand was blood. Artemis shivered as he looked at his plate. His eyebrows furrowed, four. There were four eating utensils. Two forks, a knife, and a spoon. Why were there four, anyway? Artemis straightened out one of the forks to line up with the rest. Why not five? Five was a nice number. Even three. Artemis would settle for three. Who needed the salad fork, anyway? Hogwarts served buffet style, not in three course segments. And besides, he could use the normal fork for salad. Or give him a butter knife. It didn't have to be used, but Artemis could set it up anyway. Four was bad luck.

"Professor? 'Ow are you settlin' in? Students arn' botherin' ya, are they?" Artemis' gaze shot up. What had he just been thinking? Four was bad luck? Preposterous.

"I am settling in just fine, thank you. I had a few students at the beginning of the year who doubted me because of my age, but they settled down," Artemis said. 30 words. A multiple of 5. Had he just counted his words?

"If you would please excuse me a moment," Artemis continued. 8 words. A multiple of 4. Artemis felt sick. Keeping his eyes raised and rousing all the dignity he could salvage, he fled the hall.

Artemis did not run. He was a Fowl, and Fowls do not run. More than that, he was Artemis Fowl II, self-made wizard and genius extraordinaire, he did not run. Instead, he walked briskly. He walked briskly to the nearest bathroom.

"If there are any students in here, clear out immediately or I will deduct points," Artemis said calmly. 15 words. There were no students. Naturally. It must have been because of the 15 words, had he used 12 or 16, there would doubtlessly have been some. Artemis froze as he realized where his thoughts were going and violently waved his wand at the door, locking it. Spinning around, he looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn't looking good. He was already naturally quite pale and slightly unhealthy looking, but the image looking back at him was far worse than normal. His cheeks had sunken and bags had formed under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept in years. Sure, Artemis kept waking up during the night and he wasn't getting to bed on time, but surely he wasn't that sleep-deprived?

"I am Artemis Fowl," He said clearly. 4 words. A stinging sense of wrongness filled him. "The second," He added. 6 words. Better, but still uncomfortable. "Discoverer of the fairies," There. That brought it up to an even 10. The feeling settled. So, somehow his words were influencing his feelings. He just hoped that it didn't run in reverse, he would hate to lose control of his speech.

Artemis gripped the sink tightly, unsure of what to do. Biting his lip, Artemis resolved himself. He was going to stop this ridiculous number thing right here, right now.

"I am Artemis Fowl," He growled out. 4 words. Artemis bit his lip, refusing to say anything else even as the sense of wrongness settled in his gut. This was wrong. This was bad. The world was wrong and if Artemis didn't fix it right now, everything would fall into ruin. The skies would darken, Butler would die, the fairies would hate him, Holly would...

"The heir of the Fowl Empire," 6. Plus his previous 4 made 10. Damn. Damn, damn, damn! Artemis was not one for swearing. Vulgar language was for the lower class, but he could not find better words for his situation. Why was this happening? It was compulsive, he hardly realized he was doing it.

"Tempus," Artemis said faintly. 1 word, hardly a problem. He didn't have any more classes for the day since he had just left dinner, but it would probably be good to get some rest. Yes, sleep sounded good. He would not speak again for the rest of the day and tomorrow he would begin breaking this habit immediately.

The next day, however, he found himself having difficulty doing so. Same with the day after that. However, though Artemis was frustrated about his predicament, he did not forget his décor. Seeing as he had walked out on Hagrid during their first conversation, he now owed the man an apology and there was no way he was saying it in the dining hall where everyone would hear. And so it was with a heavy heart that Artemis was trudging down the snowy hill, already planning his words, and trying not to freeze to death. Warming charms could only do so much before you set your clothes on fire and shivering was undignified.

Artemis knocked on the door twice and successfully resisted the urge to knock another three times by shoving his hand in his pocket and grabbing a small notebook he had brought along just for this. He pulled it out and marked down a tally. There were now 134 tallies on the first page. Artemis bit his lip and ignored the urge to make one more just to make it even. He was keeping a careful tally of these urges, but he didn't mark down the ones regarding the tally itself, since that would defeat the purpose. The hope was that by consistently keeping track of the habit, he would be better able to defeat it. It wasn't working so far, but he had only started on this method yesterday.

"Oh, shut up you great big mutt!" Hagrid's voice called out over the noise being raised by a dog on the other side of the door. The door opened a moment later and Hagrid peered out, beady eyes hidden behind the mess of wild hair.

"Professor Fowl?" He asked, clearly confused.

"I am here to apologize," Artemis said succinctly. 5 words.

"Apologize? Wha' fer?"

"For walking out of our conversation in the Great Hall,"

"Tha'? You don' need to apologize fer somethin' like that,"

"Nonetheless, I feel I must. I apologize for leaving early,"

"Er, well, apology accepted then. You wan' some tea?" Artemis cringed. 8 words, with a 4 word invitation. No, he did not want some tea. He did not want some tea because he did not want to go into Hagrid's house, it was doubtless too small, awkward, and uncomfortable. No, it would probably be the kind of place Holly would like, but not him. No, not at all. Especially after Hagrid invited him in using 4 words. No, he did not want to go. It would be very bad if he went after Hagrid asked like that. Artemis frowned and squeezed the small note pad in his pocket. It was true that he did not want to have tea for his own reasons, but it seemed the majority of his distaste for the idea stemmed from the 4 word invitation. He would not allow this...thing to control him.

"Thank you for the offer, I would quite enjoy some," Artemis said before stepping into the man's hut. He was completely correct, it was horribly small for the large man and therefore did not comfortably accommodate the both of them.

As Hagrid poured the tea, Artemis looked around the cabin. The only sound was the deep raspy breaths of Fang and the thunderous footfalls of Hagrid. It was interesting, looking around, because Hagrid had exactly 22 things hanging on his wall, 6 pieces of furniture, and 1 particularly ugly rug. Artemis fought the urge to pull out his wand and fix it, his abnormal OCD calling to him to change the entire room, but instead he made another tally. Hagrid finally dropped a mug of what might be able to pass as mud in front of Artemis. He grimaced, but politely took a courtesy sip of the drink. Hagrid was definitely not an artful tea maker. Setting it down, Artemis looked up at Hagrid, who was peering at him through his mess of wiry hair. There was a bit of an awkward silence as Artemis calmly gazed back. Hagrid began shifting in his seat.

"So, er, Professor...'ow are your classes goin'?"

"You asked me that when we spoke before. They are the same since then, thank you. I heard that you are a teacher right now, how are your own classes going?" Artemis asked. Hagrid's eyes lit up with a passion.

"Oh, it's goin' great! 'Oo should see wha' I've got fer them next week! Come!" Hagrid said, barging out of the house and stopping only to steal some of Fang's red meat. Artemis looked on in disgust, but followed silently, eyeing the flopping steak in the half-giant's hand.

They walked out to just inside the edge of the forbidden forest, where Hagrid began calling **and **whistling. Artemis frowned, running through the veritable library within his mind, but there were far too many possible creatures. A lot of things lived in the forest and ate red meat. However, after a moment, there was a sound, like the crunching of leaves. Artemis turned to look behind him and came face-to-face with a disgusting creature that resembled an enormous zombie Pegasus – a Thestral, if he remembered properly.

The Thestral walked past him and began sniffing at the meat in Hagrid's hand. A second emerged from across the clearing.

Artemis frowned. He remembered reading about Thestrals and wondered how 'seeing death' would affect one's perception of the animals. It clearly wasn't the animals themselves, as they had no way of distinguishing whether one has or hasn't seen death, so the magic for it mustcome from the viewer.

All that Artemis could think of at the moment was that 'seeing death' likely opened up some part of the brain or forced it to make new connections in such a way that affected the visual centers and allowed one to see the Thestrals. However, for that to happen, the person needed to be capable of full emotional exposure to the experience; babies, the extreme elderly, and anyone with less than a fully operational brain would not be capable of the experience and, thus, would not be able to gain the ability even if they 'saw' death. Furthermore, that theory would also imply that a person does not actually have to see someone die, merely truly believing that they are dead could be enough to trigger the response.

So, was the death that he 'saw' Butler's? Was it Holly's? He could remember the incident so it would have hadthe same effect on his mind as if he hadn't changed time to let her and the others live. Or was it any of the various people that died as a result of his actions?

_No._

He clamped down on that thought. He had noticed that his horrible OCD directly responded to guilty thoughts, becoming significantly worse if he ruminated on past mistakes or the effects of some of his trades. From the smuggling operations to the cutthroat business, Artemis had a hand in everything. _Aurum est potestas._ Gold is Power.

Why were there two thestrals? It brought the total number of animals in the clearing up to 4. Si. The number of death. And, of course, in the Wizarding World, thestrals were a major symbol of death. Was the universe trying to tell him something?

Artemis shook his head and marked the notebook. Rubeus Hagrid. 12 letters, 3 times 4. Another mark. Artemis began shaking, drowning out Hagrid's explanations of the thestrals. The clearing felt small, as if the trees were slowly moving inward. Could they do that? Were there any Walking Trees in the Forbidden Forest? Every crunching leaf echoed painfully in his ears, every shadow held a predator, just waiting to jump out gnashing, spitting, gashing, crushing, grinding, slicing, burning, freezing, stinging...

"'Oo okay? 'Oo look kind of peachy," Hagrid said, reaching out with his bloody hand to set it gently on Artemis' forehead. Artemis quickly stepped away from the the enormous hand and made another small mark in his notebook. Looking at it once more and looking around him, Artemis let out a very controlled sigh.

"I'm afraid that I'm rather short on time right now, if you would excuse me," 15 words. Artemis hated contractions, but his hate of any number that wasn't a multiple of 5 was quickly overpowering it.

"Uh, yeah, sure, see 'oo later I guess," Hagrid said, blinking. Artemis turned and stiffly walked back up the hill to the castle.

* * *

Butler was having an adventure. Or, at least, he liked to call it that. In all actuality, he was worried. He had begun receiving all kinds of letters from Artemis, sending him on various chores and escapades throughout a few different countries. Perhaps it was a good thing though, Butler mused, since the fairies had been following him. He had left Cygnus Hemming back in the mountains of China where he could study his plants all day long happily and where Butler could find him later if necessary. As for Butler himself, well, he had been sent on fun little missions. Strange things. For a while, he was picking up random electronic parts for Artemis. Anything from fairy tech to a toaster, which he had then sent to Artemis.

Now, though, just what did Artemis need with a butter knife? He could hardly pick it apart and if he was going to melt it down for something, he would have told Butler to pick up the metal itself. It was cheaper. Butler sighed**;** he hadn't heard much besides general orders from Artemis recently. No status updates, no new ideas, nothing. Just simple orders. It was gettingworrisome**.** Artemis didn't confide much and he wasn't a very talkative person, but he was usually a bit more chatty than this with him. Butler eyed the owl in front of him as he tied the tiny package to it. What was going on?

* * *

Artemis sighed as he looked down at the normally intelligent girl. Miss Granger was fretting, and it was erasing her focus. Not that Artemis could say much about that, these last few weeks had been hell for him. Eventually, though, he had begun to realize that there was little he could do here. Over break, he planned to go find someone who might be able to explain his sudden development of number related OCD. In the meantime, he was carefully watching himself to make sure that it didn't get any worse.

It was strange, though**;** normally there were15 students in his class. With the absence of Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter, however, there were only 13; Ms. Granger, Ms. Patil, Ms. Brown, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Longbottom, Mr. Finnigan, Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Parkinson, Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle, Ms. Bulstrode, Mr. Zabini, and Mr. Nott. 13 students. Not horrible**;** at least it wasn't a multiple of 4, but not normal. Not the usual. The usual of 15 was comforting**;** bad things didn't happen very often in a normal teaching day. No, bad things were far more likely to happen on an unusual teaching day.

Perhaps there was more to the number 13 than Artemis had initially transcribed. No, he wasn't letting himself get any worse. He was counting his words, and that was enough. He wasn't going to count the students. He wasn't going to count the pens on his desk or his papers. And he most certainly was not going to let this get any worse.

"You are dismissed," he said. 3 words. He held his tongue even as he nodded to the students leaving excitedly for the break. Ms. Granger nearly ran out of the room, clearly out of her mind with worry. He was not going to do it. He was not going to say anything to turn the 3 into a multiple of 5. Even if it would please the number gods.

"No way," he whispered. Number gods? 2 words. That made 5. He froze. How could this be happening to him? He was Artemis Fowl, a genius, and he had always prided himself on his mental facilities. Perhaps, he had been poisoned? He had done a lot of studying, yes, but he was no potions master. Perhaps there was a potion out there that could make a person start to act like this? But why would someone make something like that in the first place? And why give it to him? And, most importantly, who did it?

No, there was no way he could go and see someone about this. Although embarrassing that these compulsions were affecting his speech pattern, it was still controllable. He just needed will. He just needed to be willing to accept that he was having problems and that he didn't know what was happening, and then fix it. He had been fighting the acceptance for several weeks now, but it was clear that something was very wrong with him.

Artemis remained silent all through dinner. He did not notice that he had tapped the table in cycles of exactly 20 taps with his fork as he thought. He did not notice that he flinched whenever someone came too close, watching for any potions that might be slipped into his food. He did not notice that he had begun tapping his foot. No, he did not notice that at all. If he had, he would have been appalled.

By the time Dinner had ended, Artemis found himself a terribly nervous wreck. He was having difficulty functioning. Partway through dinner, he had caught himself counting the number of people in the room. Forcing himself to stop and focus on his food had been a monumental task. He could only hope that there was a multiple of five people in that room. Finishing eating quickly, he began meandering back towards his room.

He had to find out who had done all this. Who had ruined his communications with Butler? And how? Had they sabotaged his phone? Sabotaged Butler's? Or was Butler ignoring him? Why had Umbridge suddenly turned against him, when he had purposely gone out of his way to be nice even when he didn't like her? Who had manipulated her against him? With what information? And this thrice-damned compulsion regarding numbers! Who had ruined him? The only person Artemis could think of who would be able to do all this was Snape, but why? What would he have to gain from this?

Was Butler behind the communications thing? With Artemis out of the way, Butler could pretend to be Artemis' voice. He was so large that no one would stand against him. No, he couldn't do that with the rest of the Fowl family keeping a casual eye on the company. Actually, yes, he could. If he killed off the rest of the family, he could take complete control and with Artemis trapped here, there was nothing he could do. No, Butler wouldn't do that. He would probably cut off communications for them as well.

What about Umbridge? Could Butler have been the one to turn her against him? If Snape had slipped him some kind of potion, could he have been the one to do it? He was smart enough to, though he and Umbridge, from what Artemis had seen, did not get along very well. What information had he given her to make her hate him?

Or, even worse, could he have been wrong about the fairies not knowing? What if they were the ones manipulating everything, trying to keep Artemis from learning more about their people? He wouldn't put it past Foaly. He had hacked Foaly's computers several times, but it was possible there were files that he had missed. They could have been kept in a completely separate system, making them impossible to access without some piece of technology connected to the system. It would make sense, Artemis hadn't been looking for those kinds of files his first time hacking and Foaly could have moved them out after. But Artemis should have been able to recover the files! Perhaps it was simply because he wasn't looking? Why would they be doing something like this though? Just keeping the world away from him isn't enough, they must know that there's no way they could do that. Revenge? Holly could still be upset about her kidnapping. Foaly would be jealous of Artemis' ability to hack into his systems and reverse engineer his technology.

Unfortunately, Artemis was pulled from his thoughts by the approach of two large Slytherin boys – the two seventh years who had previously been bullying Mr. Creevey.

"Mr. Halevue, Mr. Bontamoth, can I help you with something?" Artemis asked, slowly reaching into his pocket for his wand when he saw they were armed.

"No, Professor Fowl, we're just here for a bit of petty revenge," Bontamoth said, smiling.

"Stupefy!" Halevue called out.

"Protego!" Artemis said, flicking his wand upwards. He was panicking. Sure, he had been in fights before, but never on his own. Always with Holly or Butler, someone who could actually react well, he was the behind-the-scenes planner. Artemis knew theory. He knew how to cast these spells in controlled circumstances like a classroom or his living room or the testing room, but he had never used them in a fight before!

"Tarantellegra!" Bontamoth yelled. Artemis jumped sideways to avoid the spell, but failed to dodge the second beam of red light. Artemis fell over, frozen.

"No offense, teach, but we don't forgive people who embarrass us. Consider this your warning and remember that we could have done anything to you in this hall tonight, but chose to leave you," Halevue said, smirking. The two boys then stepped over Artemis' body and walked away. Artemis, meanwhile, was fighting a battle to stay awake. Stunning rarely knocked someone out by itself, but it was very easy for someone to hit their head on the way down and get knocked out that way. Artemis hardly had time to hope to himself that he hadn't damaged his frontal cortex before everything blacked out.

* * *

Holly huffed, watching Butler through the window. She had been very careful to stay out of sight this time. Each of the previous times she had managed to get caught up with him directly, he had found her and knocked her out. It was very frustrating. Worse still was that, despite all her stalking of Butler, they still hadn't managed to find Artemis.

"Anything Foaly?"

"No! Still no! I am running all kinds of scans on that area for every kind of technology we know of, and I am not picking anything! There are no signals going from Butler to the outside world, there's no communication between him and Artemis!"

"That can't be though, Butler has to be getting his orders somehow," Holly said quietly, watching the man carefully. He seemed to be petting an owl. Holly's eyes narrowed.

"Foaly, do your scans include wildlife?" Holly asked. Foaly snorted.

"Of course not, do you know how much wildlife is running around within 50 meters of you? My computers would be fried," Holly highly doubted that was true, but she could imagine how Foaly would consider wildlife to be extraneous information. "Why?" He asked suspiciously. Holly was silent for a moment as she watched Butler open the window and gently push the owl out. Reaching up to her helmet, she zoomed in on the leg of the owl as it left. A small letter was tied to it. She heard Foaly suck in a breath as he watched through the visuals.

"I think Artemis found another way around your systems," Holly said, frowning. It was very unlike Artemis. He enjoyed proving he was the best and rubbing it in people's faces by beating them at their own game, not being sneaky for the sake of completely avoiding suspicion. He was more likely to continue the hacking contest he had with Foaly than do something like this. He truly was doing everything within his power to keep them away. Holly really hoped she wouldn't be faced with an evil Artemis again.

"Follow that owl!" Foaly ordered.

"Already on it," Holly muttered, powering up her wings and taking to the air.


	6. Orion and Holly

Artemis stirred slowly, waking up on a soft bed just like everyone else who entered the hospital wing did. Madam Pomfrey watched him with a hawk's eye, making sure there were no adverse effects from the Stunning spell. After all, it was very strange for someone to be knocked out by it. The professor was lucky a couple of students had found him and brought him up here. He stared at the ceiling, blinking slowly for a moment before he began sitting up. Well, that just wouldn't do.

"Now, now, I need you to stay laying down for a bit. I couldn't find any signs of a concussion, but there's no other way to be knocked out by a Stunning spell, so I…" she trailed off, looking at him confused. The professor was looking at her strangely, his expression open as opposed to his normal stone and his eyes wide with wonder. A grin spread across his face.

"Why, was it you, Mistress of Healing, who brought me back from death's end?" He asked. Madam Pomfrey frowned, the concussion must be worse than she had thought.

"I would hardly say you were anywhere near 'death's end', but yes, I was the one to cast Ennervate on you," she said. The grin, if it were possible, spread wider.

"Wonderful!" He exclaimed, reaching out and grabbing her hand, shaking it vigorously. "Thank you, Healing Mistress. Tell me, have you seen my beautiful lady? I fear I have not seen her in months and was hoping I could once more cast my eyes upon her lovely visage over this break," Madam Pomfrey roughly pulled her hand away from Artemis. Inappropriately, she couldn't help but be confused about Artemis having a girlfriend. He just didn't seem the type. Pushing the thought out of her head, she focused on her clearly ill patient.

"Um, no, I'm afraid I haven't seen her. Tell me, have you always been this…excitable?" Madam Pomfrey asked. Admittedly, she hadn't really spoken at length with him before.

"Of course! However, Artemis, being the rather self-absorbed person that he is, fears to allow the world to know his true feelings!"

"Uh, so you are not the Professor?"

"Of course not! How could you mistake this beautiful romantic for such a cold selfish person? I am Orion," Madam Pomfrey felt very overwhelmed.

"Well, if the Healing Mistress would excuse me, I must be on my way. I have traveling, dragon-slaying, and lady-saving to do!" Artemis/Orion said, swinging his legs out of the bed. Madam Pomfrey pulled out her wand and hoped for the best as she did what she often did for troublesome students.

"Stupefy!" She called out. Orion's head whipped around to look at her in shock and betrayal before the spell connected. He froze up, his eyes closed, and he fell. Madam Pomfrey ran over to him and quickly felt the back of his head. Still no sign of a concussion.

"Levicorpus," she said, waving her wand over his body. Slowly, Artemis floated upward and onto the bed. Madam Pomfrey hesitated for a moment before sighing. She couldn't find anything wrong with him, even with diagnostic spells and good old fashioned looking for injuries. By all accounts, he should be perfectly healthy. Sighing, she conjured some ropes to hold him down. When… Orion…woke up, he may prove to be hostile. Standing a little ways away from the bed, she gently cast the spell;

"Ennervate," The Professor twitched and moved for a moment before his eyes snapped open and went straight to her, fixing her in place with his normal cold stare.

"Why," he drawled, "am I tied up?" Pomfrey let out a grateful sigh, the coldness of his personality was more welcoming than she could possibly have anticipated.

"You were acting strange when I woke you up before," She began to explain, but he interrupted.

"I am afraid that you are mistaken, I haven't woken before. I was stunned, then I woke up here," He said slowly, clearly implying that she was an idiot for thinking otherwise. Pomfrey pursed her lips.

"Now, see here young man, a few second year students found you unconscious in the hallway and brought you here. I recognized that you were simply stunned and woke you, but then you began speaking strangely and referred to yourself as Orion. I then stunned you once more as you began to leave in order to go 'traveling, dragon-slaying, and lady-saving'," she explained sternly. Professor Fowl looked at her, his face completely blank and free of emotion.

"You lie," He eventually hissed, "You're just trying to make me seem crazy, but I happen to have a perfectly functioning mind, body, and _memory_." Madam Pomfrey couldn't help herself at that moment, but look at the boy. Really look at him. He was disheveled, unkempt, and his eyes did look wild and crazy. At this moment, they were darting around, trying to find a way to escape. He truly did not look like a man of sound mind and body. He was silently accusing her, thinking that she had done something. Paranoia. She frowned, she didn't recall him being this way when they had first met.

"Professor Fowl, I need you to tell me if anything is wrong. Are you injured anywhere? Can you see clearly? Have you noticed anything strange lately with yourself?" She asked, trying to stay professional. His eyes snapped to her.

"I am fine," he said, calmly, "simply stressed from having to grade midterm exams". As if everything was right once more in the world. Pomfrey hesitated, but she couldn't hold a teacher in without proof of injury if he wanted to go, not like with a student. Especially when it was officially break now. She sighed heavily and waved her wand. The ropes vanished, the professor took his wand, and, almost like apparition, he was out the door. His footsteps quickly faded as he moved down the hall. Perhaps he was telling the truth - perhaps it was simply stress. Professor Fowl was rather young, after all, the same age as many of the students. However, Madam Pomfrey couldn't shake the feeling that there was something far more sinister happening. That something was horribly, fundamentally, wrong with Professor Artemis Fowl.

* * *

Orion. 5 letters. Orion, a legendary human hunter, said to be so revered and powerful that Zeus granted him a place among the stars after his death at the goddess Artemis' hand. It was a good name. If Artemis could have chosen his own name, Orion would have been on the list of potentials. However, Artemis quite liked his own name. After all, it was Artemis who slayed Orion, clearly she was the better hunter.

And as for Madam Pomfrey, she hadn't been on the list of suspects before, but she definitely was now. What had she done to him while sleeping? Where had the story of an alter-ego come from? What would she have to gain from his absence? Or from him? Recognition? Healers worked tirelessly behind the scenes and never got any recognition for it. Although Artemis could get her publicity, it was a long route to take with a huge amount of gambling and, overall, very unlikely. Perhaps, though, she was working with Snape. However, Artemis still could not find what Snape would gain if Artemis left.

He frowned as he reached his rooms. Looking around at his belongings, he waved his wand and caused all of them to fly into a trunk sitting on his bed. The suits folded themselves and wrapped themselves around his breakables. Artemis absently watched his hair brush fly past his head as he realized he hadn't brushed yet that day. It went into the suitcase and Artemis found himself not caring, he had far more worrying things to focus on. An owl tapped at the window and Artemis took the letter from him, stuffing it in his pocket to be read later. Levitating the suitcase over to the fireplace, Artemis grabbed some Floo Powder from a small jar and tossed it in.

"The Winking Sphinx!" He called out, stepping into the green flame. He stepped out carefully after landing into the cheerful small bar. Shouts rang out in strange combinations of Irish and English as Artemis calmly slid through the crowd to the front door. Opening it, he found himself in Belfast, the largest city in Ireland. Artemis pulled out his cell phone and looked at it for a moment, contemplating calling Butler, before he narrowed his eyes and put it away. No, Butler wasn't to be trusted. Not anymore. Putting it back in his pocket, Artemis waved down a taxi, and asked the driver to take him to a warehouse near the River Lagan. The warehouse was one of many safehouses Artemis owned around the world. He didn't want anyone, including his family, to tell Butler he was back. Once the taxi had dropped him off a couple blocks away, Artemis walked to the building and hid himself inside. Locking the doors with everything that they had, he was forced to acknowledge that the warehouse had some outdated technology. He would have to update it.

However, in the meantime, he had some hacking to do. Artemis walked straight to the computer lab that was in every warehouse and, with practiced ease, broke into the fairy communications systems. He quickly located Foaly's superior software on the network, and set about with one of his favorite pastimes. It was rather calming and familiar, even as Artemis slowly worked his way through Foaly's networks. Unfortunately, it seemed that Artemis had gotten rusty in his computer lacking environment at Hogwarts. Was that part of the plan? Make Artemis bad at computers? However, that would have to mean that Dumbledore was part of the plan, as he had hired Artemis in the first place. Artemis froze, his hands ceasing their clicking of the keyboard. Was Dumbledore in on it? Was this job one huge plot to take over and control Artemis' life? With Artemis stuck at Hogwarts, Dumbledore could use magic to pose as him in other parts of his life. The old coot was definitely smart enough to. Perhaps he was working with Snape! Snape would be the one slowly ruining Artemis' mind while Dumbledore was the people person who did the business takeover. How many people had they ruined in this trap? Perhaps every person who took the DADA job. Perhaps the 'curse' on the job was actually their combined efforts.

Who had come before him? Professor Moody, supposedly revealed to be a Death Eater. Mad-Eye Moody, before that revelation, was well known for being a paranoid genius at hunting Death Eaters. His word, while not law, was gold in regards to putting criminals away. After being revealed, many began considering him a joke. Captured and impersonated in his own home? What had they gained from that? Well, Moody would have a much more difficult time putting criminals away. They could only gain from that if they were working together with Voldemort, or if they were trying to take control of his servants. No, they could never take control of a fanatic's servants, so Voldemort had to be back and they had to be working together. That meant, then, that Snape wasn't a spy, traitor, or double-agent, as Artemis had first suspected, but a communicator. He probably took the messages back and forth between Dumbledore and Voldemort.

Further back, Professor Lupin. A known werewolf, he was a father figure for Harry. He could have been a secret agent of Voldemort's. No, then they would want him in power, not disgraced. Perhaps he was an example of what would happen if one went against Dumbledore and Voldemort. After all, at first they were allies. Dumbledore gave Lupin the job, but then Lupin went against them somehow, and so Snape outed him under the disguise of a 'school grudge'. What did Lupin do against Dumbledore? The only thing Artemis could think of would be that he helped Harry. Yes, perhaps Mr. Potter was the key. Harry Potter was the one who stopped Voldemort and, likely, would be the one to end up destroying him. If Dumbledore and Voldemort were working together, then Dumbledore would want Harry gone. Naturally, though, he couldn't just have Harry outright killed, that would be bad for the school and his own reputation. Looking back at Mr. Potter's first two years, though, it seemed as though he was placed in situations both times where Dumbledore couldn't be blamed.

The boy's first year? Dumbledore had warned them to stay out of the third floor, but the boy and his friends had gone and almost gotten killed, even if Artemis didn't know the details. Second year? Miss Weasley had been taken into the Chamber. Who would blame Dumbledore if Harry decided to rescue his friend? Third year. Well, the werewolf thing spoke for itself. Perhaps Dumbledore had told Lupin to bite Harry? Fourth year, the boy ends up in a deadly magical tournament. Who was Dumbledore to argue with a magical contract?

Yes, it all fit together. Dumbledore has been continuously trying to kill Mr. Potter since he first set foot in Hogwarts, but trying to do it in a way that would remove the blame from him. How did Artemis contribute to this? Perhaps Dumbledore thought that he could take the power of the Fowl Empire and use it to further his goals. Perhaps he had some other nefarious scheme in mind for the boy, not all of them had directly involved the DADA professor, after all. Shaming Mad-Eye and putting Harry in the tournament were fairly separate. Mad-eye's revelation also didn't happen until the very end of the year, was something similarly planned for him?

Artemis leaned back in his chair, tapping the arm of the chair with his fingertip 20 times absently.

* * *

Holly carefully kept the owl within her sight as she flew across Greenland. The owl was surprisingly smart; it seemed to realize that it was being followed and had tried to give her the slip multiple times. She couldn't simply shield the whole time since she didn't know how far they were traveling, and she might need her magic far more later on, so she was forced to fall back on basic tactics: following from a distance. Holly was able to use a tracking function on her helmet to help her keep an eye on the bugger. It was surprisingly difficult to follow a brown dot across the sky.

Sparing a glance down at the ground below her, she wondered whether or not normal owls could fly this fast. She was pushing her wings as fast as they would go. Admittedly, the Wind Runner was an older series of wings; LEP couldn't afford much better, but she should still be able to outfly any old owl even on a bad day. Yet, she was struggling to keep up with it. She had started following the owl in Japan, but here she was, hardly a day later, following the thing across Scotland! She also had to account for the many false turns and such that the owl had given her. Without her interference, it may have gotten here several hours earlier!

Holly frowned as the tracking screen on her helmet glitched. The screen actually faded out for a moment, as if it had been shut off. Holly hit her helmet right over the computer console in it and the screen faded back in. After a moment though, it began to fizz out again. Holly reached up and prepared for the high winds against her face as she took her helmet off. Looking down at it while flying, she turned it over, trying to see if a bug or something had gotten in the wiring. However, it looked rather flawless. She put it back on carefully and spoke, activating the voice command calling system.

"Foaly?" She asked. She heard a moment of static as Foaly's side rang before he picked up.

"Holly? What's up? You find out where the owl was going yet?"

"No, Foaly, your helmet is being stupid. The targeting function keeps going offline. In fact, all the electronic functions keep going offline,"

"Sorry, pl…peat that, I can't…you," Static was fading in over Foaly's voice quickly. Holly pushed down the panic that rose in her chest; the helmet was the only form of communication she had on her at the moment.

"HELMET BROKEN!" She shouted, feeling like an uncivilized ape. All well.

"Imp…le!"

"Foaly! How do I fix it?!" She called out, enunciating her words in the hopes of them getting through.

"Hol…fl…temis…" Static overran Foaly's voice.

"Foaly? Foaly!" She called, but no response. Just static. She grunted and reached up to turn off her helmet as the tracking functions had faded and the screen wasn't working either. Gasping in shock, Holly pulled her hand away from the button. It shocked her! Was that even possible? She was wearing full body LEP armor! A shock would be absorbed and redistributed as energy to help power the armor. Eyes suddenly widening, Holly lifted her hand to her face. Now that she thought about it, she was rather cold. Were the thermal coils working? What else wasn't working? Looking down, she also noticed that she was falling pretty quickly. Not quite dangerously quickly, but her wings were puttering out. She would be in freefall soon.

Having only seconds to think, Holly made up her mind. If she was going to die by fall anyway, she may as well try her crazy idea. Tilting her body, Holly dove. Angling herself carefully, she flew straight into the trees. Holding her hands up in front of her body and face, she prayed she wouldn't be killed by this. Hundreds of small branches tore into her. Her broken Recon suit offered no protection, barely providing a tough layer of cloth to stop branches from completely flaying her. Hitting a break in the abuse, Holly peeked through her arms and saw the ground coming up fast. Turning upward suddenly, her wings gave out one last great heave as they slowed her just a foot above the ground before they gave out.

Holly collapsed on the ground, covered in shallow cuts and barely able to move. She let the adrenaline slowly work its way through her system before forcing herself up. All of her tools seemed to not be working. She pulled out her Neutrino and shot at a nearby tree. The weapon sputtered out a bit of smoke and Holly tossed it. Right, so she was in the middle of nowhere with no help and no gadgets. And it was all Artemis' fault. Well, at least she still had her magic. Holly took off the wings and left them there, they were useless and heavy if they didn't work, but she kept her suit and helmet. She left the neutrino. She didn't want to be near it if it was malfunctioning, no matter how safe it supposedly was.

Looking around the woods, Holly frowned. The trees towered over her and she felt very exposed and small without her neutrino. She had no wings, no tools, no communication, and no help on the way. She had two options. She could continue moving forward, in the direction the owl had gone, or she could go back and hope her communicator started magically working again. Well, she had already come this far; might as well keep on pushing forward.

Holly trudged along through the foliage, careful to keep her eyes open for anything that might be able to eat her. After all, about her only defenses right now were shielding and mesmerizing.

_mesmer_ took much less magic, so it was preferable, but it wasn't always successful and took direct eye contact. She wasn't sure if she wanted to get that close to a dangerous creature without any weapons or armor. She might be able to shield for a ways, but she didn't know how far it was until the edge of the forest. Plus, she wasn't sure if the armor could withstand shielding without power. Theoretically, it could, but she really didn't want to have her first communication with Artemis in almost a year be her asking for clothes.

She absently wondered if she could climb the trees and move through the tree tops, but decided against it. Far too monkey-like, and she was a bit too clumsy to trust herself in those trees 50 feet off the ground. Hearing a clicking sound, Holly ducked behind a bush. Placing a hand over her mouth to minimize the sound of her breathing, she peered carefully through the edges. A big shiny black eye stared back at her. Suddenly, there was a gnashing sound as Holly rolled back away from the enormous spider's bite. Did spiders even grow that big?! She flipped up to look at the thing properly. It was probably twice her height and several times her width, making her the perfect sized meal. Great.

Pursing her lips, Holly focused her magic and shielded, hoping it would work on this spider. As she vibrated out of view, the spider shook it's head as if there was a particularly annoying bug flying about. It focused in on her, then it's eyes slid away, before they focused in on her again. Holly narrowed her eyes and the spider lunged. Rolling under the gaping pincers, she landed on her back under the spider. Holly kicked upward with all her strength and mentally cheered when one of her legs broke through the spider's exoskeleton. It probably wouldn't kill him, but it would hurt. The spider let out a blood curdling shriek as it reared back.

"Ha!" Holly shouted cheerfully, standing up. However, her joyous moment died when she looked up to see hundreds of eyes looking at her out of the bushes.

"D'arvit," Holly swore, before she turned and ran. Making sure to stay shielded, since it did seem to confuse the spiders a bit or at least cause a headache, she jumped bushes, ducked branches, and just ran as fast as she could. She had to find some way to stay safe!

Hearing a loud thumping in the distance, Holly smirked. The best way to get rid of a small predator was to find a bigger predator. Turning and tucking under some more biting pincers, Holly ran in the direction she heard the loud noises coming from. Covering her face and charging through a bush, Holly gaped at the clearing she found. And, in the center of the clearing, was a giant. Holly mentally cheered as she ran towards the giant. Hearing a bunch of angry clicking, she turned back to see the spiders gathered at the edge of the clearing, all clicking loudly at her and the giant. She allowed a smile to spread across her face as she laughed in adrenalin and success. Holly knew better than to taunt, but she couldn't help grinning widely at the spiders as they sulked off. She looked up at the giant who was peering down at her curiously.

"Bug," he said, pointing at her. She rolled her eyes, she hated dealing with beings of such low intelligence. Mulch included. Heck, talking to creatures like giants or sprites could almost make Holly sympathize with Artemis.

"Not bug," she said stubbornly, "Holly." She pointed at herself. The giant stopped for a moment, peering at her. About a minute later, comprehension dawned in his eyes.

"Grawp," He said. "Grawp."

"Grawp, can you tell me where a city might be? Or people?" Grawp clearly didn't understand this. Instead, he giggled and, like a child with a crush, went back to his little pile of toys. Holly frowned as she noticed the giant was chained to a tree. Was he being kept here as a pet? As ransom? Was this Artemis' fault? She really didn't want to think that badly of him, she had thought that he had changed, but with his record…Grawp pulled out a rubber duck, wedged between his two enormous sausage fingers, and handed it to her. Holly smiled tightly at him and squeezed it so that it let out a squeak.

"Thank you Grawp. Do you know where someone is I can talk to?" Grawp seemed to understand as he tilted his head and thought. After a minute, he pointed in a certain direction and said;

"Haggy." Holly nodded, smiled, and left in the direction the giant had pointed. Shielding again to try and make sure nothing else found her, she left in the direction of 'Haggy'. Once she had left the clearing, she tossed the duck. After only a couple minutes of walking, she saw something through the trees. Running out of the trees happily, she gaped at the sight that met her. In front of her stood an enormous castle with towers spiraling into the sky and beautiful banners hanging out of the windows. It stood up at the top of a beautiful green hill with a lake barely visible over the edge. Holly wasn't sure how long she stood there just taking in the magnificent sight, but she did know that she was shaken from her trance by the low laughing of someone. Turning, she saw a large man, a bit bigger than Butler, with a raggedy look enter a rather small hut.

That was probably 'Haggy', but he really didn't look like the kind of person Artemis would work with, so someone else had to be running this operation. Holly began the long hike up the hill, still shielded. However, when she reached the top, she realized she had a pretty bad problem. She didn't have her wings and she was too short to look into the windows. All the doors were closed and locked so there was no way she could 'misinterpret' an open door as a welcome, and she couldn't find someone to trick into letting her in. She had run back down to Haggy's home, but he wasn't there anymore. Scowling, Holly had to concede that she had no way to even peer into the castle. She could barely see into Haggy's home, and that was only because the door was a bit too small for the opening and so she could peer through the cracks.

Walking slowly around the castle, Holly spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Several lights were moving away from the castle and down towards...a town! There was a town near here! She wasn't sure if she could catch up with the moving lights on foot, but she was fairly certain that there would be phones or something in the town she could use to contact Foaly. All she had to do was get there.

* * *

This is now officially my longest FF. Please review!


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